About this artist
An innovative progressive and technical death metal band from Reading, Pennsylvania, Rivers of Nihil courted the metal underground before expanding their fan base with the release of 2018′s Billboard-charting Where Owls Know My Name. The group continued to integrate more progressive elements into their sound on 2021′s shape-shifting The Work.
Rivers of Nihil signed with Metal Blade Records in 2012 following a string of successful self-released EPs and countless U.S. tours and festival appearances. With esteemed metal producer — and Hate Eternal frontman — Erik Rutan at the helm, the band headed down to his Mana Recording Studio in St. Petersberg, Florida to lay down the tracks for what would become their full-length debut, The Conscious Seeds of Light. Released in late 2013, the resulting ten-song set ran the gamut of modern progressive death metal from brutal aggression to dark melancholic dirge, and Rutan’s uncompromising production served the band well. A sophomore effort, 2015′s Monarchy, treaded similarly dark waters, as did 2018′s genre-hopping Where Owls Know My Name, the latter of which introduced elements of electronica, jazz, alternative rock, and folk and debuted at number 61 on the Billboard 200. 2021 saw the release of Rivers of Nihil’s fourth full-length effort, The Work, which added a more wistful and exploratory esthetic to their dynamic prog metal sound. ~ Timothy Monger