Progressive mixed with extreme has become one of my favorite forms of metal (along with various flavors of power and symphonic), and the quality of many releases in this subgenre has been sky high as of late. One band that had been on my radar for a bit was Pennsylvania-based Rivers of Nihil. Despite recognizing both their talent and incredible musical compositions, I admittedly never got into either of their previous 2 releases. The run up to their 2025 self-titled album saw a handful of singles that I really enjoyed, making me excited for the full length. 

And like a House of Light (my favorite track), any shadows of doubt were washed away. This album has it all: incredible melody, utter brutality, insane technicality, amazing vocals, unreal musicianship, beautiful song compositions. One moment they are rapidly punching you in the gut, the next they are allowing you to float dreamily, then crushing your skull, then taking you on a technical adventure, but always impressing you. There are myriad layers on this album, with twists and turns that beckon you to join along, all while painting a canvas that is proggy, melodic, and super heavy. The drumming is utterly phenomenal, even more so when you realize he sings while technically pounding away. The guitars are never over the top, but they complement each other very well, with juicy riffs, tasteful solos, and plenty of heft. The bass guitar is also amazing, and it is a sight experiencing the deft fret work simultaneously with lead vocals in a live setting. And the saxophone! Saxophone seems to be popping up more and more in metal, but Rivers makes it next level. It effortlessly melds in with the songs, whether it is complementary to the guitar or the main lead, and it never sounds out of place. Seeing it live exponentially increased my appreciation for it. The vocals definitely bias toward the extreme, though there are plenty of cleans with soaring melodies and harmonies, and the pairing of extremes and cleans together adds a lot of depth to the songs. 

The album gives you a nice taste of what it is like out of the gate with “The Sub-Orbital Blues”: silky harmonies and soaring melodies over chunky guitar chugs, accentuated with aggressive growls while proggy melodic layers swirl around. And then after a nice guitar solo and big vocal driven section, they throw a saxophone solo at you over a heavy underbelly. What a start! “Dustman” starts with driving bass before blastbeating your brains out, drawing more from traditional death metal roots while still weaving in plenty of prog sensitivity. I love the dichotomy of the more aggressive verses with the soaring chorus to add some depth, but from start to finish this song is just super heavy and in your face while remaining melodic. “Criminals” has an ethereal start that permeates the entire song, before ripping your face off, and dancing back and forth throughout. The chorus is incredible and just massive, the late guitar solo is really nice, and the drums really stand out on this song.

“Despair Church” has a nasty driving riff that gives it a sludgey feel at times, great use of dynamics, and an absolute earworm of a chorus. It scratches the theatrical itch just over halfway through, breaking things up before a nice guitar solo. And then when it has seemingly ended, you get a killer piano / saxophone duet to close things out. It likely makes my top 2 songs if not for the one-two punch of the next 2 tracks, which hands down are my favorite songs and function as part 1 and 2 of a larger opus. “Water & Time” is a melodic prog metal masterpiece, with great melodies, dynamic contrast, and massive soaring vocals. The saxophone is the primary lead instrument, with the guitars providing a melodic backdrop that complements perfectly. It doesn’t venture into the extreme until a little after the 3 minutes mark when the sax segueways into serious guitar chugs and growls. It finishes out with a chorus pairing the soaring cleans and aggressive growls, with the sax continuing to carry the lead burden.

The ending of “Water & Time” seamlessly flows into my favorite song on the album, “House of Light,” using sounds of the ocean as the connective tissue. It reprises the melody from the last track in the form of a saxophone lead atop ethereal cleans, before ripping your head off death metal style, and then knocks you off your feet with an anthemic chorus punctuated with blastbeats. The song navigates through various layers of melody and aggression, including one of the best guitar solos on the album, plenty of atmosphere, amazing dueling vocals, and more saxophone that just sounds perfect.

“Evidence” is easily the heaviest song on the album, starting out with a fury of blastbeats and rarely letting up. The drums and guitars are brutal, and this song has my other favorite set of guitar solos, super fast and technical. “American Death” is in your face and quite charged, and I love how the music and lyrics mirror each other. “The Logical End” is another very proggy song, building on itself with various layers, melding melody and brutality with plenty of technicality and some killer sax and guitar lead. Things close with the title track, a shorter track that feels like Jekyll & Hyde, with big vocal harmonies and a subdued feel for the first half, before one final face melting section leading to a slow fade out.

This album came out in June, right before their album release tour brought them to Seattle, a show I almost chose not to attend because I was leaving very early the next morning for another metal festival. Fast forward 2 months, and I constantly return to this album, never tiring of it, and I can’t wait to see them again at ProgPower in September! If you like your metal proggy, extreme, and thought provoking, you absolutely need to check out this album.

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