Ithyphallic (album)

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Ithyphallic is the fifth studio album by American technical death metal band Nile. It was released on July 17, 2007, through Nuclear Blast in standard and digipak formats, and runs 49 minutes and 47 seconds. The album was recorded February–April 2007 at Sound Lab in Columbia, South Carolina, and produced by Neil Kernon. It was Nile’s first release on Nuclear Blast since signing with them in May 2006, and it is the only Nile album since Amongst the Catacombs of Nephren-Ka that does not include notes explaining the lyrics.

1,000 limited edition copies came in a pyramid-shaped box with the disc, images, a certificate of ownership, and a scroll containing the lyrics and liner notes. The cover art shows a statue of the fertility god Min being erected by Egyptian slaves. The title Ithyphallic means “Erected Phallus” in ancient Greek.

Nuclear Blast ran a fan contest in June–July where fans had to decipher a secret hieroglyph message to listen to the album; the winner received an email with a link to the listening site, and the answer revealed on July 7 was “papyrus.” All lyrics were written by Karl Sanders.

Papyrus Containing the Spell to Preserve its Possessor Against Attacks from He Who is in the Water is Nile’s second single from the album, released as a digital download on June 22, 2007. It includes the title track, a rehearsal of “Laying Fire Upon Apep,” and a video of a drum session. In April 2008, Night of the Vinyl Dead Records released what they called the first brutal death metal–shaped picture disc: a 7-inch single of “Papyrus” with “As He Creates So He Destroys” and an instrumental version as B-sides, limited to 500 hand-numbered copies.