“You know when you hear the beginning section of the opener, that you’re in for an onslaught. There’s going to be a tidal wave of viciousness soon to follow and it tells your brain: be ready for the storm.”

The storm that Karl Sanders - founding member and longtime guitarist/vocalist for iconic death metal band Nile - is referring to, is the band’s 10th studio album, The Underworld Awaits Us All. While the band took time to meticulously craft each song, an overwhelming presence of brutality shapes the album’s overall mood.

“There’s not as much fancy window dressing here,” says Sanders. “In other words, whatever nice, soft, comfy velvet glove was around the fist, well, it’s a bare fist right now. This album is very streamlined to its core effective elements, which are all brutal.”

For over 30 years, Sanders has been able to channel his immense fascination with Egyptian mythology into enriching the atmosphere surrounding Nile’s barbaric and ferocious compositions. Having discovered “an unending wellspring from which to draw upon and explore,” he continuously finds himself drawn to creating songs that utilize Eastern modal tonalities, evil 4th and 5th parallel guitar riffing, ominous octaves, war horns, and cinematic timpanis.

Continuing his commitment to writing music for Nile from that unending source, Sanders, over time, has developed a much more surrendered approach to his writing process.

Sanders explains: “I prefer to not let form or structure dictate creativity. Sometimes the music comes first and suggests the story, words or lyrics, and sometimes it’s the other way around. Sometimes the music and story occur simultaneously. Sometimes I just have a title, and that will start my mind wandering as I am playing the guitar. Sometimes inspiration can just be the wrong chord.”

He continues, “It all flows organically from within itself. It’s not an internally imposed structure that we’re obeying. But rather, wherever the song leads is where we go, and that’s more fun. It takes you places that perhaps one might not have gone if they were following structure. It doesn't have to be anything, it can be whatever.”

That philosophy is what guides the new album through twists and turns of colossal, swirling riffage and a variety of growling vocal ranges. All bolstered by the stellar and dynamic drum performance delivered by George Kollias. “The level of cooperation between George and I on this record is the best it’s ever been,” reveals Sanders. “He put a lot of time and thought into his drum parts and how they worked within the song…a lot of time.”

Elaborating on the percussive impact in relation to the new record, “It’s the percussion that creates the primal, physical connection,” Sanders explains. “I think when we stop for a second and consider the nature and essence - the core connection of percussion to the human - then we can more fully realize the storytelling power and potential inherent in drums. A good drummer can make storytelling poetry, wordlessly narrating entire story arcs with what they do.”

Perhaps the most notable component of The Underworld Awaits Us All is how all of the instruments work together to generate some of the band’s most cohesive songwriting. And while it took some time for the songs to take shape for this album, Sanders acknowledges, “It was really the carving and the honing and trimming the fat off some of the songs that took awhile. There’s six, seven, eight, nine, ten versions of all these songs…Then when George would start with it, sometimes it would go ten, twelve, thirteen versions, before we were happy and realized it was really working together. Because without it really working together, it can very quickly degenerate into a wall of noise…Getting all the elements to be cohesive, that’s what took long. There was great focus from everyone involved.”

After pouring all of himself into his work on this new album, Sanders has had some months to reacclimate to normalcy, to which he expresses, “Usually, for a good while, during the record and a little while afterwards, I’m not necessarily sane. Playing pickleball this time was how I made my way back. There’s something about it - getting back out, getting active and mixing it up with different people. Dude…it was my bridge back to sanity.”

He adds, “I’ve had to dig myself out of that immersive hole several times, so I know that it’s possible. After you’ve climbed in and out of that hellhole for a while, you realize when you’re in it and what you’re gonna have to do to get back out of it…I’m one of the guys who’s in this for life and I always knew it. This is what I’ll be doing until the metal gods strike me down and say ‘Thank you and goodnight!’”(laughs).