About an hour after a gnarly summer storm dumped close to an inch of rain onto Nashville, Rivers of Nihil and the the Aggressive Progressive Tour steamrolled through Basement East.

Featuring support from Glacial Tomb, Inter Arma, and Holy Fawn, the 29 city trek gives Rivers of Nihil and opportunity to showcase their self-titled fifth LP, which debuted at #2 on Billboard’s Current Hard Music Albums Chart with 2.8 million Spotify streams globally after its first week.

READ THE KNOTFEST FEATURE WITH RIVERS OF NIHIL - HERE

Winning over both their fans and critics alike, Rivers of Nihil is their first without co-founding vocalist Jake Dieffenbach, whom the band split with in 2022. Since then, bassist Adam Biggs has stepped up to the mic, and the band hasn’t looked back.

Together with longtime guitarist and creative partner in crime Brody Uttley, former Black Crown Initiate guitarist and vocalist Andy Thomas, drummer Jared Klein, and saxophonist Patrick Corona, Rivers of Nihil showed the Music City faithful why they’ve climbed to the top of the progressive metal mountain.

Glacial Tomb opened the night’s proceedings with several cuts of 2024’s Lightless Expanse. Guitarist and vocalist Ben Hutcherson (Khemmis) showed his prowess and versatility wielding the axe, and served as a perfect prelude to warm up the crowd; some who were still drying off from the rain.

Richmond’s Inter Arma followed with a mind-bending set of progressive death metal. Sporting a PJ Harvey shirt, vocalist Mike Paparo leapt and stomped across the stage, matching intensity with drummer T.J. Childers, who was a fiend behind the kit. Nearly a dozen different-sized cymbals surrounded him to accent the deranged riffing. Not to be outdone, bassist Joel Moore applied his own demented skill to match guitarists Trey Dalton and Steven “Dirt” Russell.

Holy Fawn drew the biggest crowd of the night, enveloping the audience in a blanket of sound and entrancing them with their post-rock-meets-blackgaze. Starting their set with a hearty “Fuck ICE!” Ryan Osterman, Evan Phelps and Alexander Rieth helped the room transcend to a different musical plane. It was a bittersweet moment when they had to wrench the crowd from their reverie with their final song “Seer”.

Rivers of Nihil took the stage with four massive and blinding LED towers. The enthusiastic few hundred in attendance used all available space to throw down in the mosh pit. By the end of the night there were guys spinning hand-in-hand like Saturday Night Fever, and more than a few times trying to recreate the famous scene from Dirty Dancing.

Dressed smartly in black and crimson vests and button downs, they kicked off with “The Sub-Orbital Blues,” and deftly wove through tracks from their newest album, The Work, and 2018’s seminal Where Owls Know My Name. Biggs engaged the crowd a few times and looked comfortable behind the mic while his hands ran like angry spiders across the fretboard of his six-string bass. At this point he’s had several tours to get used to being center stage, and he looks every bit the frontman.

Meanwhile, Thomas added an extra depth to the vocals. His higher croon carried a levity in the band's dynamics, none more so than in album single “Water & Time”. He’d often harmonize with Klein, giving their parts the feel of an entire choir behind them.

When the song called for saxophone, Corona jumped on and off stage, effortlessly playing his instrument to the cheers of many. Sometimes he’d saunter non-chalantly into place, other times he’d creep on like a vaudeville villain. His piano key belt added a final sense of whimsy to his musical parts.

Ending their set with the title track from Where Owls Know My Name, followed by an encore of “Clean” from The Work, the band could have kep going for an hour moe and the audience would have happily obliged. By the time they walked off stage, it was clear to everyone in attendance that Rivers of Nihil are operating at the peak of their prime.

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Rivers of Nihil, the new studio album from Rivers of Nihil is now available via Metal Blade Records. Get the album - HERE