Exclusive Playthrough Premiere: Rivers of Nihil, “Reign of Dreams”

Playthrough videos these days are hit or miss… mostly miss, to be honest. While it’s always fun — especially for musicians — to see how a song is played up close, too often today’s playthroughs don’t allow for that because they’re shot with just one crappy camera that’s too far away to really pick up on anything meaningful.

But not this one. As they’ve done in the past — see past playthroughs for “Perpetual Growth Machine,” “Airless” and “Soil and Seed” — PA death metallers Rivers of Nihil have released an exquisitely shot performance demo for “Reign of Dreams,” from their 2015 album Monarchy. The clip was filmed by John Boyce at Sylar Sound, and features guitarists Brody Uttley and Jon Topore riffing their way through the song, using a Generator 120 from Revv Amplification, with plenty of tight shots of their fretboards and picking hands. This is what playthroughs should be.

Monarchy is out now; stream it in full here and order it here. Rivers of Nihil head out on their first tour of Europe very soon with Obscura, Revocation and Beyond Creation; dates here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16_iP0VVp5E