Artist of the Month
2010
Xerath is a new cutting edge band combining crushing meshuggah style riffs with epic orchestral composition. Their sound can be described as taking influence from Strapping Young Lad, Meshuggah and Dimmu Borgir to create a distinctive sound they call "orchestral groove metal" (or chug-score!)
The band was formed in 2007 by guitarist Andy Phillips, drummer Michael Pitman, bassist Owain Williams, and later joined by Richard Thomson on vocals.
Originally started as an experiment to combine film-score with syncopated guitar rhythms, and just a year later a fully formed gigging band with a clear direction. Xerath aim to carve a long and relentless career on the cutting edge of technical symphonic groove metal.
The result of their union, Mechanize, is a full-fisted blast of passion and innovation that sounds like the missing link between’s 1995’s caustic, groundbreaking Demanufacture and 1998’s more texturally nuanced Obsolete. Songs like “Industrial Discipline” and “Powershifter” are crushing and colossal, melding rhythms as fast and precise as uzi blasts with vocals that pinwheel from raw and scathing to hauntingly melodic. While “Fear Campaign,” which features harrowing spoken word passages, quickly segues into a showcase of punishing beats, rapid-fire riffs and ghostly keyboards. And for the first time in years, the band’s industrial roots glimmer through its street-lethal metal, thanks in part to the co-production efforts and keyboard programming of Rhys Fulber, who worked on Fear Factory’s industrial remix albums Fear is the Mindkiller and Remanufacture. [Continue]