The Work (New Rivers of Nihil album)

[Naren]

Where Owls Know My Name was, in my opinion, the best album of 2018 and is by far the best album Rivers of Nihil had put out. I got their newest album, The Work, and listened to it several times, and, while I don't think it's at the same level as Where Owls Know My Name, it's an amazing album with tons of great tracks. A much better album than either The Conscious Seed of Light or Monarchy.

No music video for this one, but this is one of my faves off the new album:

[Adam]

Awesome. I need to crank this later. I loved Owls, but didn't really listen to much else from them.

[Soopahmahn]

I agree with your analysis 100%. I can't stop listening to WOKMN, and I want to snag it on vinyl when it's restocked.
I have only made it through this twice, but I super love the proggy shreddy moments. But I won't be buying it, just streaming.

[RevDrucifer]

I’m anxious to check this out!

Every few months, I’ll use psychedelics to hit my reset switch. It’s not a party thing and I generally do it alone because I spend most of the time meditating and don’t want anyone around to run their mouth or interrupt what I’m doing. About a year ago, as the night was winding down and I was dozing off on the couch, “WOKMN” popped on YouTube, I shot right up and it couldn’t have been a better video at that time. I really dig most of that album, but that song is just fucking killer.

What’s funny is that I sent the video to my buddy. A few weeks later he’s texting me to tell me he was showing his buddy Les Claypool’s side metal band and I replied, “WTF are you talking about?”, he goes “That video you sent me about owls knowing your name or something, Les Claypool’s band.” He fucking saw a bowler hat in the video and just assumed it was Les Claypool. I still bust his balls about it.

[pjr]

Similar to OP, Where Owls Know My Name was one of the (if not the) best albums of 2018. Absolutely crushing riffs all over the place. I haven't been able to get into this one as much but I'll give it a few more listens based on what people are saying here.

[Naren]

What’s funny is that I sent the video to my buddy. A few weeks later he’s texting me to tell me he was showing his buddy Les Claypool’s side metal band and I replied, “WTF are you talking about?”, he goes “That video you sent me about owls knowing your name or something, Les Claypool’s band.” He fucking saw a bowler hat in the video and just assumed it was Les Claypool. I still bust his balls about it.

That's my favorite song off the album (followed closely by The Silent Life), but I kind of hesitate to send the music video to anyone because... well... the video is just them joking and screwing around in this goofy gag music video, and it takes this amazing song and kind of cheapens it. I bought the album when it first came out in mid-March 2018 and it was 6 months later when the WOKMN music video came out and it was... pretty jarring to say the least. The music and video do not REMOTELY match up at all. I mean, that's the point. I kind of wonder why your friend thought it was Les Claypool's band when not a single element of the music sounds remotely like anything Les Claypool has ever done.

And for anyone who has no idea what the fuck we're talking about...

I'm also pretty sure this is the only joke music video Rivers of Nihil has ever done, so I kind of wonder why they did this for arguably the best song on the album. So yeah, I both LOVE the music video and hate it at the same time. And I know they aren't the only guys to take a serious song and make a complete joke of the music video. I can think of quite a few other metal bands that have done the same, some which only did a joke video like once and others that do them all the time, even though the songs themselves aren't jokes.

[RevDrucifer]

That's my favorite song off the album (followed closely by The Silent Life), but I kind of hesitate to send the music video to anyone because... well... the video is just them joking and screwing around in this goofy gag music video, and it takes this amazing song and kind of cheapens it. I bought the album when it first came out in mid-March 2018 and it was 6 months later when the WOKMN music video came out and it was... pretty jarring to say the least. The music and video do not REMOTELY match up at all. I mean, that's the point. I kind of wonder why your friend thought it was Les Claypool's band when not a single element of the music sounds remotely like anything Les Claypool has ever done.

And for anyone who has no idea what the fuck we're talking about...

I'm also pretty sure this is the only joke music video Rivers of Nihil has ever done, so I kind of wonder why they did this for arguably the best song on the album. So yeah, I both LOVE the music video and hate it at the same time. And I know they aren't the only guys to take a serious song and make a complete joke of the music video. I can think of quite a few other metal bands that have done the same, some which only did a joke video like once and others that do them all the time, even though the songs themselves aren't jokes.

It was literally just the fuckin’ bowler hat! That’s the ONLY reason he associated them with Les Claypool!

The video is certainly goofy, but man, seeing it the first time when I saw it, it was fucking perfect. I remember laying on the couch with my eyes closed up until the distorted guitars came in and then I shot up and had to see who it was, then got a big smirk that only one in my state of mind would have understood.

Such a killer fucking song that I haven’t gotten tired of hearing yet. The sax solo is the cherry on the top.

[Kagami]

I got this without listening as the other one was great and honestly it's just not for me.

[Chris]

I like the tune in the OP (void). Very Ministry-ish.

And Saxophones out of nowhere.

[Connor]

Similar to OP, Where Owls Know My Name was one of the (if not the) best albums of 2018. Absolutely crushing riffs all over the place. I haven't been able to get into this one as much but I'll give it a few more listens based on what people are saying here.

Exactly this. I didn't even make it all the way through the album on my first listen. I'll give it another go sometime soon...

[Naren]

I like the tune in the OP (void). Very Ministry-ish.

And Saxophones out of nowhere.

The sax member isn't an official member of the band (he's always listed as a "guest musician"), but he plays sax solos on quite a few songs on both the new album and the previous one.

One of my favorite songs from the previous album:

The glorious guitar + sax solo starts around 2:44 and is probably my favorite sax solo on any of their songs.

[pjr]

Exactly this. I didn't even make it all the way through the album on my first listen. I'll give it another go sometime soon...

The vibe on this one is just so different - still haven't been able to make it all the way through...

[Naren]

The vibe on this one is just so different - still haven't been able to make it all the way through...

"Different"? How? If you were talking about their first two albums, then sure, but the vibe and style is EXTREMELY similar between their two most recent albums. Their debut album, The Conscious Seed of Light, had zero clean vocals, zero keyboards or sax, was tuned down to F#, had strong influences from black metal and brutal death metal, and had very few solos/leads. Their second album, Monarchy, was far more progressive, getting rid of the black metal and brutal death metal influences, adding in a lot more solos and leads (along with more proggy riffs/song structures), but it still had no clean vocals, no keyboards or sax, was still tuned down to F#, and has a more typical technical/progressive death metal style. On their third album, Where Owls Know My Name, they added keyboards, saxophone, clean vocals, and other instrumentation (such as cello and trumpet), and raised their tuning to Ab/G#. Their newest album, The Work, follows the same vibe, sound, tuning, and overall style as Owls with no particular stylistic differences other than "a little more of this" or "a little less of that" (for example, it overall has more clean vocals). The only song that I think sounds really different from Owls is Track 10, Maybe One Day, which sounds kind of like something Devin Townsend might put out.

The new album is hardly as good of an album as Owls, of course, but very few are. I'd rank Where Owls Know My Name as one of the best albums of the past decade, whereas after listening to The Work all the way through six times so far, I'd just say it's a "very good album."

[Adam]

One of my favorite songs from the previous album:

The glorious guitar + sax solo starts around 2:44 and is probably my favorite sax solo on any of their songs.

I love the main riff on this track. That chug is mean as fuck.

[pjr]

"Different"? How?

Okay, based on what you wrote I actually listened to the whole album. I'd agree that it's actually more similar than I initially thought but keep in mind that I made those statements when I'd only made it a few tracks in which in my opinion is clean vocal heavy - the main stylistic difference you yourself pointed out. I could be wrong (it's also been a while since I listened to the previous album) but I think you would struggle to find something stylistically similar to Wait on WOKMN (which comes very soon after the clean heavy Tower). Same with Maybe One Day

Either way, thanks for the post it definitely got me to listen again and I enjoyed it a lot more.

[Naren]

Okay, based on what you wrote I actually listened to the whole album. I'd agree that it's actually more similar than I initially thought but keep in mind that I made those statements when I'd only made it a few tracks in which in my opinion is clean vocal heavy - the main stylistic difference you yourself pointed out. I could be wrong (it's also been a while since I listened to the previous album) but I think you would struggle to find something stylistically similar to Wait on WOKMN (which comes very soon after the clean heavy Tower). Same with Maybe One Day

Either way, thanks for the post it definitely got me to listen again and I enjoyed it a lot more.

Thanks. I'm glad you took the time to listen to the whole album. I do think that Maybe One Day sounds unlike anything they've ever done before on any album. I see a lot of elements of Wait on different tracks of WOKMN, but that album has a much more desperate and dark feel (which The Work on the whole does too, but not as much as WOKMN), while Wait has a more melancholy feel but not quite dark or desperate. There were a lot of parts in WOKMN that reminded me of The Faceless (especially the last 2 Faceless albums), and I think The Work has those elements even more so. What's entirely new on this album are the parts that I find reminiscent of Devin Townsend (but I'm sure there are other bands or artists it could be compared to).

I guess overall I'd say that The Work is very much the same style as WOKM, but more diverse. More instruments, more influences, more of the bands' vocalists all participating in vocals (especially when it comes to cleans). I don't think The Work is nearly as good of an album, but I enjoy it a lot. I think the last track (Terrestria IV: Work) is one that gets better on each listen.

[pjr]

I guess overall I'd say that The Work is very much the same style as WOKM, but more diverse. More instruments, more influences, more of the bands' vocalists all participating in vocals (especially when it comes to cleans). I don't think The Work is nearly as good of an album, but I enjoy it a lot. I think the last track (Terrestria IV: Work) is one that gets better on each listen.

Yep, I'd pretty much agree with all of this. Terrestria IV is indeed excellent.

[Naren]

Yep, I'd pretty much agree with all of this. Terrestria IV is indeed excellent.

And in case you haven't heard the first two albums, here are 2 songs from each that I think are representative of the style differences that I mentioned in my previous post.

The Conscious Seed of Light (1st album):

Monarchy (2nd album):

[Soopahmahn]

I like the new Instrumental version of Void.

[Naren]

Soop, I think this is what you meant to post.

[pjr]

And in case you haven't heard the first two albums, here are 2 songs from each that I think are representative of the style differences that I mentioned in my previous post.

The Conscious Seed of Light (1st album):

Monarchy (2nd album):

Definitely haven't listened to the first two albums much (Monarchy a little bit when it came out and CSoL once or twice working backward at that time) but I think you picked good examples. Man, forgot how much I liked Suntold - time to listen again.

[RevDrucifer]

Just got to start listening to it today but only got a couple songs in, I’m digging the shit out of it so far! Can’t wait to dig in some more after work!