| CD REVIEW Xerath |
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Band: Xerath This quartet hails from Basingstoke (UK), where a bunch of 17 year-old enthousiast musicians spread over 4-5 bands found their ranks thinned out through university studies and girlfriends, until only the “hard core” was left in the form of guitarist Andy Phillips, bassist Owain Williams, and drummer Michael Pitman. During 2007 circumstances (and a common goal to make music that would combine epic orchestral arrangements…say film score music…with the “ChuggaCore” Metal known from the likes of Strapping Young Lad and Meshuggah…Dimmu Borgir being an additional influence) had brought the threesome (who’d already been good friends before, but only came together musically for the first time with the Xerath thing) together, and they duely started a band, soon to be joined by singer Richard Thompson. Using triggers to activate a laptop on which they had taken down the orchestral parts of their music, the band soon found itself local heroes following the first live appearances one year after the initial formation. This spread out to national proportions with the release of the band’s one and only demo, which got ‘em rave reviews from Terrorizer (they even won the 2008 Fear Candy Unsigned competition over a fierce battery of no-nonsence amount of acts into Death, Black and Thrash Metal), Union Black,and UKMU (UK Metal Underground). Getting that kind of attention from the press, the band was boùnd to be noticed by record labels, and to co-incide with my birthday on Nov. 25, 2008, the band announced they had signed with Candlelight, their already recorded album at that same moment being re-mixed in France by Brett Caldas-Lima of Kalisia fame! Originally, the band had hoped for a February/ March release…and you know how things are in the music bizz these days…but the material delivered was well worth the wait! Musically, the at times complex polyrhythmic guitar play (erm…”Technical” and “Progressive” are words well in place here) is made acceptable through the over-lay of the “simpler” orchestral samples! On top, Thompson shouts, screams, screeches, and growls his way through the lyrics, giving the music its Black/ Death finishing. A couple of tracks got my special attention: “Nocturnum” for including some operatic female backings, and “Interlude” for being an instrumental track without band (just film score music), but I would like to stress on the fact that I actually lóve each and every track on this album! It’s a bit like Nile when they do their orchestrated songs, but with slightly different singing, slighly more complex guitar work, and the Egyptian theme missing! In the end conclusion, the band surpasses a lot of their competition thanks to a good healthy dosis of originallity…something rare to find these days! If you don’t believe me, just surf to myspace.com/xerath, where the band posted two songs off the album, both being perfect examples of the band’s qualities! Evidently, with such praise come a high rating…in this case also a nomination of the album into my “Best (Extreme Metal) Albums Of 2009”-list 98/100 Tony. |