Amongst the Catacombs of Nephren-Ka
Amongst the Catacombs of Nephren-Ka is the debut studio album by American death metal band Nile. The album was released on April 28, 1998, through Relapse Records. The album is considered to be their breakthrough record. Unique in the discography, the songs on this album are notably shorter in length than those featured on subsequent Nile albums. Amongst the Catacombs of Nephren-Ka is the only release besides "Ithyphallic" to not include Karl Sanders's liner notes explaining each song. The title of the album is a reference to the H. P. Lovecraft  story "The Outsider". The phrase is featured in the song "Beneath Eternal Oceans of Sand" which has lyrics paraphrased from the aforementioned tale. In Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, Nephren-Ka was an Egyptian Pharaoh whose unspeakable cult worship led him to be stricken from almost all Egyptian records. The catacombs where he is buried are referenced in several Lovecraft stories as well as many stories by other mythos authors. The song "Smashing the Antiu" is about a festival celebrating the destruction of the Antiu, a people with whom the early Egyptians were frequently at war. The orchestral intro on "Ramses  Bringer of War" is strongly inspired by Gustav Holst's "Mars" movement from "The Planets", written between 1914 and 1916. The title of the song "Das rache krieg lied der Assyriche" roughly translates as "The Revenge War Song of the Assyrians" in German (""Das Rache-Kriegslied der Assyrer""). Track listing. All tracks written by Karl Sanders