''The Conscious Seed of Light'' is the debut studio album by American

technical death metal Technical death metal (also referred to as tech-death) is a musical subgenre of death metal that began and developed in the early- to mid-1990s, with particular focus on challenging, demanding instrumental skill and complex songwriting. Techni ...

band Rivers of Nihil. The album was released on October 15, 2013 via

Metal Blade Records Metal Blade Records is an American independent record label founded by Brian Slagel in 1982. The US office for Metal Blade is located in Agoura Hills, California. It also has offices in Germany, Japan, Canada, and the UK. The label is distrib ...

. It is the first album in the band's

tetralogy A tetralogy (from Greek τετρα- ''tetra-'', "four" and -λογία ''-logia'', "discourse") is a compound work that is made up of four distinct works. The name comes from the Attic theater, in which a tetralogy was a group of three tragedies ...

based around the four seasons; it represents

spring Spring(s) may refer to: Common uses * Spring (season), a season of the year * Spring (device), a mechanical device that stores energy * Spring (hydrology), a natural source of water * Spring (mathematics), a geometric surface in the shape of a ...

Background and promotion

On December 10, 2012,

announced that they'd signed ''Rivers of Nihil'' to a record deal, and released a demo for the song "Rain Eater". The label also announced that the band would be working with Erik Rutan of

Hate Eternal Hate Eternal is a death metal band from St. Petersburg, Florida. The band currently consists of founding guitarist/vocalist Erik Rutan and bassist J. J. Hrubovcak. To date, Hate Eternal has released seven studio albums: '' Conquering the Throne' ...

and

Morbid Angel Morbid Angel is an American death metal Death metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. It typically employs heavily distorted and low-tuned guitars, played with techniques such as palm muting and tremolo picking; deep growling ...

to record their first

studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

at Mana Recording Studios in

Tampa, Florida Tampa () is a city on the Gulf Coast of the United States, Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. The city's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa Bay area and ...

. Album artwork was created by Dan Seagrave, who would handle the artwork on the band's next three albums as well. Dan Seagrave explained, "For this artwork I was thinking about Roman ruins, as well as Egyptian and Aztec culture. I had visited Pompei and tried to use the feeling of ancient lost history in this artwork." The version of "Rain Eater" that appears on this album was uploaded on YouTube on August 20, 2013. This was followed in September 2013 by singles "Mechanical Trees" and "Soil & Seed". In promotion of the album, the band released three more singles with their own videos: a lyric video for "A Fertile Altar", a play-through video for "Airless", and a music video for "Birth of the Omnisavior".

Track listing

Personnel

Production and performance credits are adapted from the album liner notes. Rivers of Nihil * Jake Dieffenbach – lead vocals * Brody Uttley – lead guitar * Adam Biggs – bass, backing vocals * Jon Kunz – rhythm guitar * Ron Nelson – drums Production * Dan Seagrave – artwork * Brian Elliott – additional engineering * Alan Douches – mastering * Adrian Perez – photography * Erik Rutan – production, engineering, mixing

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Conscious Seed of Light 2013 albums Metal Blade Records albums Rivers of Nihil albums