After successfully completing their 4 album concept album about the seasons with 2021’s The Work, Rivers of Nihil were free to journey where they pleased. Add in some line-up changes that occurred in the years following, which resulted in bringing in Andy Thomas (Black Crown Initiate) as guitarist and vocalist, and bassist Adam Biggs doubling up on vocals himself, and the field was wide open for the band. The resulting self-titled album provides a sweeping reset for the band, and showcases all of their best assets. We spoke with guitarist Brody Uttley to get his thoughts on the shifts following The Work, what Rivers of Nihil is best at, his thoughts about the metal scene, and a look back at Monarchy.
Dead Rhetoric: Coming off of The Work, and having some changes in the band, what was your mindset going into the studio?
Brody Uttley: Going into this record was going to be different no matter what just because of the line-up shift and things like that. We were really excited to see what would happen. We brought Andy [Thomas] in, previously from Black Crown Initiate, and we were really excited to see what could be done with his vocals in our sound. He obviously sang on the title track for Where Owls Know My Name, so we kind of had some sense of what it would be like. But it was exciting to see what we could do in the studio with this new configuration. We actually recorded a few of the songs that are on the new record back in March 2023, shortly after we parted ways with our previous singer.
We wanted to write some new music relatively quickly and get into the studio to see how we would work together and what we were capable of. We actually recorded “Sub-Orbital Blues,” “Criminals,” and “Water & Time” back then, and we released two of those songs over the course of the last year and a half or so. We were really pleased with the results of those early sessions. Those songs made it onto the final record, a bit remixed with some additions. There’s saxophone on “Sub-Orbital Blues” now, there’s banjo on “Criminals,” and we were going to release “Water & Time” as a single as well earlier on, but we liked it so much that we wanted to save it for the official album roll out.
Dead Rhetoric: I wouldn’t call the new album a ‘back to the roots’ type of album, but do you feel you embraced more death metal aggression this time around?
Uttley: Yeah, I think that on this record, for the first time ever, when we were writing an album, we looked back at what we had done as a band so far. This is our fifth record, so we have four albums that we can look back at and objectively examine what worked and what didn’t, as well as what felt good and was fun to play live, and what connected with our fans and what didn’t. We took a lot of that into consideration and figuring out what we are good at as a band and how we could get even better at it with this new line-up. I think that compared to The Work, this album is more of a band – the core elements of a heavy metal album type of band – there’s a lot of songs written on guitar. They started with a riff. A lot of the songs for The Work I had written out on piano first. Writing The Work was almost more like arranging an orchestra or something than writing a death metal record. This one was a bit more traditional in that it started with riffs.
So yeah, I think this album in some regards is a ‘back to the roots’ album but not really. There are moments on the record where I can point to specific things that we have done in the past and we took ideas from that and revamped it for the current era of the band. The song “The Logical End” really reminds me of what we would have done in the Owls era. The song “Evidence” really reminds me of something we would have written during the Monarchy era. So there was a different kind of approach to this record. I think a lot of times when we make albums, we are trying to go as far in the opposite direction of whatever we had just done as possible, and I think on this record, it is very different from The Work. But we really tried to figure out what we were good at and really focus on that. We got tunnel vision about those things on this one.
Dead Rhetoric: So, in your view, what do you feel that Rivers of Nihil is really good at?
Uttley: At this point, especially with Andy being in the band, I think that we are an incredibly strong vocal band. We have the three-part harmony thing going on a lot now, kind of like a death metal Beegees or Mastodon. That kind of format. Even with Jared [Klein] singing and drumming like Brann from Mastodon. So I think the vocals at this point are a big, standout thing for the band. Instrumentally, I think we excel at existing somewhere in between in the realm of not being tech death but not just mindlessly heavy. We are good at existing in this in-between space. We have technical moments but the foundation of it is rooted in a catchy mentality. I think we are good at the big, heavy and catchy thing.
I think there are moments in The Work where we couldn’t have arrived at where we are now without writing The Work. It’s still a record we are extremely proud of. I think we had to prove to ourselves that we could write a big, prog album like that, like The Wall or something like that. There’s some stuff on there where we got so, so adventurous with stuff that some of it does feel a bit overly indulgent at times. We have struck more of a balance with more of the proggy stuff this time. I think it has just the right amount of weirdo prog stuff on it, so it doesn’t scare people away but it will also grab the attention of new listeners that are looking for that in our sound. I’m getting off [topic] a bit, but I think we are really good at the vocals, the big and heavy riffs – they aren’t too too fast but not so slow that they are mindless, but they hit hard live and sound great in a room. I think on The Work, even though there is saxophone on The Work, I think we were in a bit of denial about how much we wanted to incorporate it, or how we wanted to incorporate it.
The whole saxophone debacle, we didn’t want to become known as the ‘sax band’ and I still don’t think that we are. But playing shows with sax versus shows without it, there is a different. People do like that side of things in the live environment. I think on this record, we were really considering with stuff that connected live well. We wanted to bring the sax back in more of a major way than we did on The Work. The Work had more of a textural sound instead of big, ripping leads. There are definitely some big, ripping sax leads on this record as well as textural stuff. I think having Patrick Corona play sax on this record – he has toured so much with us at this point, even though he has never played on any of our records. He did the Where Owls Know My Name tour, and he has toured with us so much since then. I think he has really found his place in our ranks and he is bringing a lot to the table too, in my opinion.
Dead Rhetoric: I wanted to bring up the saxophone eventually. You have saxophone, cello, and banjo on the album. This isn’t anything particularly new for you, but how do you work in outside instruments to your liking?
Uttley: I’m not sure, honestly. We get asked about how we think to put things like saxophone in certain spots, and I’d love to have an interesting answer but the truth of it is that we have had some friends who are super talented. It’s always a friend, you know, who ends up playing the weird instrument. We never think ahead of time and say, ‘oh, I would like to have a didgeridoo on this record, we must find a didgeridoo player from somewhere and hire them.’ It’s always a friend from our inner circle. Zach played on Where Owls Know My Name and The Work. He was a friend of ours. Patrick – same thing. He’s around, and when we are writing this stuff, we wonder how something would sound. If it sounds cool, it sticks.
Same thing with the banjo. Our friend, Stephen Lopez, who is also our merch guy when we tour, he is an incredibly talented banjo player. He lives in New Orleans and plays in a number of bluegrass bands. He was in town since we just got off tour, so I thought it would sound scary and spooky if we put a banjo on this one part in “Criminals,” like it would sound like a creepy A24 backwoods witchcraft thing. So we tried it out and it sounded cool. He played banjo in a few songs that it didn’t end up staying on, so I think a lot of the weird instrumentation stuff is trial and error. Same with the cello. Grant [McFarland], who played the cello, is the guy who helps record our albums. We record at his studio. We have known him a long time and we trust him. He knows the band and our sound. He wants to try it out with us. Having talented people around us, who we trust, who are willing to try stuff out, is the reason we end up with so many weird instruments on the record.
Dead Rhetoric: Given the self-titled nature of the album, did you want to make it clear that this was a fresh start with the album?
Uttley: I think that coming off of the first four records, which all had a seasonal concept suite, closing that chapter out while simultaneously having a big line-up shift sort of brought us to this point. This is officially a new era of the band. From here on out, it’s going to be a different thing, really. This record, with the self-title, we thought by giving it that moniker it would be a real statement. Metallica doing it on the Black album is the most obvious example of that. I think back to when I was a kid and getting into bands. A lot of times, when I saw a song or an album with the same name as the band, I would often want to check that out. I thought there had to be something special about that song or album if they decided to name it after the band.
I think that was part of the thinking here. We might catch people’s attention who have been listening to us for a while. Maybe if they hadn’t checked out any of our stuff recently, they might be curious and want to see what it’s all about. At the same time, maybe people who haven’t heard of us might see it and think it’s a good place to start getting into our band. Also, it just feels like this batch of material is pretty powerful and important to us and putting the self-title on it feels like a statement for us. We are confident in where we are heading, where we are, and that this is a new era of the band. This would be a good place for people to start [listening].
Dead Rhetoric: The two songs that really caught my ear on first listen were “Water and Time” and “Despair Church.” Is there anything you can say about them specifically, I know we already briefly talked about “Water & Time?”
Uttley: “Water & Time” was a song that, when I started writing it instrumentally, it was kind of influenced by some of the big ‘80s pop records you might hear. Like Kate Bush or Tears for Fears. It had that weird sample in the beginning with the clanging and the big synth pads. It has a big, retrosynth-y sound. That song started by me messing around with sound effects and some synthesizers. That really came to life really once we added vocals to it. The chorus is one of my favorite ones that we have done. Andy singing leads on that was a good move, and it brought a new dimension to that song.
We recorded it really early on in 2023 and I think when we finished it, we knew it was an important song for the band. I had shown it to a lot of people who don’t even listen to metal at all and they really loved the song. I showed it to friends that do like metal and they were also very happy with it. I know Dave Brodsky, who directs all of our music videos, he heard the early version of it and he said he had to make a music video for it, and he bugged us about it forever. We wanted to release the song earlier, since we were so excited about it, but figured we would hold onto it until just before the album release. I’m glad we did because it will be the third and final single for the record.
“Despair Church,” that song is actually my favorite song on the record. I think it’s the best example of the current era of the band’s capabilities. Andy and I wrote that song together in a pretty major way. A lot of our songs that we have written up til this point have been me writing the instrumentals. Our past guitarists, they would contribute a song to each record and I would have to be heavily involved in crafting it so it would line up with what I was working on. But “Despair Church,” Andy and I came up with it together and it feels really special because of that. We were really going back and forth in a creative way. That song kind of ends, and there is a reprise of the chorus with a big sax part and I play grand piano and Grant plays cello, and it’s this big moment on the record. There’s no other moment like that one.
I remember Patrick, he came up with that sax part unprompted and all on his own. He was just like, ‘hey I just came up with this, I don’t know if you guys will like it.’ We were blown away by it. Originally we weren’t going to include that reprise on the song, because we thought it felt out of place, but after he added sax to it, it felt like the perfect moment for that song. It feels like a big collaborative moment for the band. I’m very stoked on, and I guess in hindsight, but I kind of wish we picked that one as a single, but you can only pick so many.
Dead Rhetoric: Monarchy is 10 years old this year. Looking back on that album, how do you feel it altered the trajectory of the band?
Uttley: I think that Monarchy was the first record that we wrote after the first shift in the line-up. Our first record was all five guys that started the band. Once we did the first record, guys started to figure out if this lifestyle and everything was for them. Two of our original guys ended up not wanting to continue doing band stuff. It was right before we were set to start working on Monarchy. It was the first record that I feel I came into my own as a songwriter. I was learning how to record at that time as well. Given that I was starting to become somewhat savvy with recording software, it helped me to get good at arranging a song. It was a big period of experimentation and learning for me.
I think that was an era where I think, for me at least, that I proved to myself I could really write songs for this band. Before that, we all sat in a room together at band practice and yell over the guitars and drums to try to piece songs together. When we lost two guys we started the band with, we wondered if we could still do this and if there was still going to be chemistry. I think Monarchy was a confidence booster, for me, as I proved I could write a big batch of songs. Adam has always written the vast majority of the lyrics, but I think Monarchy was the album where he came into his own as a lyricist. It was a really focused vision, and a more focused concept than our first record.
Even though Where Owls Know My Name is the one that everyone talks about…a lot of people probably think that’s our first record, know what I mean? Even a lot of people see it as the start of things, in the public eye, for us, I view Monarchy as the real inception point for what the band has arrived at now. I view the first record as us figuring things out. I view Monarchy as the first really focused project we did as a band. Every time we play stuff from that record, it always feels really good. I think there’s a lot of pretty relevant and powerful stuff from that album.
Dead Rhetoric: What do you want to see more of in extreme metal, or just metal in general?
Uttley: I feel like I have been seeing what I would have hoped for. When I was 15 years old, it was in the big era of NWOAHM. Lamb of God, Shadows Fall, Killswitch Engage, Trivium, God Forbid. Those were the big bands at the time. I feel like there was a hard line between scenes back then. It was like hardcore kids didn’t fuck with metal guys, and metal guys didn’t fuck with hardcore kids. Emo kids were just not allowed. There was this ‘poseur’ stuff. I feel like bands really kept to their own styles and genres. They didn’t try stuff from other genres or cross-pollinate. I started to notice a big change around 2020. You saw a lot of bands blow up – you had Lorna Shore, Sleep Token, Spiritbox, Bad Omens, who are now at the top of the heap. They are all very different but they all shared a lot of the same fans. I don’t know if it’s the younger generation coming in and not caring about the hard lines as much as the previous generation did. It seems like fans and bands are more open to experimentation. Someone who listens to Lorna Shore might listen to Rivers of Nihil and they might also listen to Sleep Token and Underoath.
It’s totally fine! No one is calling them a poseur, they aren’t getting beaten up at shows, I feel like a lot of the judgement and fear that a lot of kids aren’t aware of now, I feel a lot of it has gone away. It has made bands less afraid to try weird stuff. You are seeing a lot of bands doing their own thing who are really getting noticed for it. I feel like for a long time, if you didn’t sound like X, Y, Z, you were getting put down. It’s almost like it’s an encouraging thing to be different. I think for a band like us, who has never really existed in [a box]…we were never brutal enough to be a true death metal band, we were never tech enough to be a tech death band, or prog enough, or whatever. We were never one thing.
For a long time, we struggled to figure out where we belong. We have basically been in our own lane for so long, so now that we have come to this era where not really fitting into a blueprint is the norm, I feel like it’s a good thing for a band like us. What band do we tour with? We could tour with Cannibal Corpse, we could also tour with Periphery, we could tour with BTBAM, we could also tour with Nile or Lorna Shore. It’s a weird area. It’s a long answer, but I’d like to see more bands trying different stuff and not being afraid to do stuff that has historically not been welcomed in other genres. I’d like to see fans continue to just listen to a wider array of styles of bands. I think the judgement and ‘poseur/stay out of my scene’ shit, I’m glad to see all that go. At some points, it started to feel like the genres were gangs and trying to keep you out. It was silly to me. It’s cool to see fans and bands more open to more stuff.
Dead Rhetoric: What are your plans for the rest of 2025?
Uttley: The album is out May 30 and it’s coming out during our next tour, which is with Holy Fawn, Inter Arma, and Glacial Tomb. Then we are home til August and we go back to Europe for festival season. We are playing a bunch of festivals there, like the main stage at Bloodstock with Gojira, which will be awesome. We are playing with Dimmu Borgir this summer. We are playing a bunch of really cool festivals, and nothing else is announced yet but we have some stuff going on in the fall that I can’t talk about yet. But we should be pretty busy for the rest of the year and playing a bunch of stuff from the new record.
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