Roadtrips

If memory serves, heavy metal began in earnest its infatuation with ancient Egypt on the cover of Iron Maiden's Powerslave -- the one with a Sphinx being erected in the likeness of the band's sneering, skeletal mascot, Eddie. But if the myths of the ancients have been fodder for all sorts of diabolical riff mongering -- from Dick Dale to the Bangles -- we've never come across anything remotely like Black Seeds of Vengeance, the latest album by the massive death-metal band Nile. We'll bet tomb-raiding singer/songwriter Karl Sanders is the only metal dude ever to quote the pharaohs in the original hieroglyphs -- his extensive liner notes, which name-check the eminent turn-of-the-century Egyptology scholar Sir E.A. Wallis Budge, serve up a fascinating and well-articulated discourse on the history of history itself, not to mention a compelling argument for why Budge's translation of The Book of the Dead reveals a finer shade of meaning than Faulkner's. The music's pretty great, too -- backwards-masked gong, monk chants, and an obscure Middle Eastern continuous-respiration double reed are just a few of the strange drones that show up; what's more, the rhythm guitars on "Masturbating the War God" and "Defiling the Gates of Ishtar" (didn't Warren Beatty beat 'em to it?) sound like plow blades making mincemeat of a groundhog den. The best extreme ethno-metal disc since Sepultura's Arise? We think so. Check out Nile when they hit the Palladium (508-797-9696) in Worcester on Wednesday with Incantation and Impaled.

In the absence of a new Tool album, the art-metal championship belt now fits snugly around the waist of the Deftones, whose emo-scarred melodies take a back seat to acid-proggy shape-shifting "dynamics" on their latest, White Pony. They're on the road with Incubus -- who learned their melodies on a Sunny Day but seem to get their funk from the Phish tank -- and Taproot, whose most popular track is the answering-machine message an enraged Fred Durst left for 'em (it's now making the Napster rounds). Tuesday's gig at Tsongas Arena (800-477-6849) in Lowell is sold out, but you can catch 'em at the Connecticut Expo Center (800-477-6849) in Hartford on Wednesday. Of course, if you do, you'll miss Marilyn Manson, who hits the Tsongas on Wednesday with the Union Underground and Godhead. The following night, you can give thanks goth-metal style with Type O Negative, Simon Says, and Spineshank at the Webster Theatre (860-525-5553) in Hartford. If you're holed up with the 'rents on Turkey Day, the same bill puts in an appearance at Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel (401-272-5876) in Providence on Saturday November 25.

Interplanetary post-surf cyborgs Man . . . or Astroman? explore the instrumental fringes on their latest low-bandwidth effort, A Spectrum of Infinite Scale (Touch & Go); included is a track called "Many Pieces of Large Fuzzy Mammals Gathered Together at a Rave and Schmoozing with a Rock." A dada Thanksgiving or a twisted interpolation of "Funky Drummer" as imagined by the Astronauts? You make the call Saturday at the Middle East (617-864-EAST) in Cambridge, or Sunday at the Met Café (401-861-2142) in Providence, or Monday at the Higher Ground (802-654-8888) in Winooski, Vermont.
-- Carly Carioli