(Xerath’s 2011 album “II” was one of our favorites last year — check out TheMadIsraeli’s review of it here. Recently, he caught up with the band’s stellar guitarist Owain Williams for this real-time interview conducted via Facebook chat — a conversation to be continued at a later date.)

TheMadIsraeli: Hey Owain, totally random ass question…

Owain: Fire away

TheMadIsraeli: interested in doing an on the spot interview right now?

Owain: I’m game

TheMadIsraeli: Xerath. How did it start and why?

Owain: It was actually the brainchild of Andy Phillips, the old Xerath guitarist. Myself and Michael Pitman were merely there to facilitate his ideas. His vision was to marry classical music to technical heavy metal. All Mike, Rich and I have done (as well as recruiting Chris) is understand and realise that goal and try our hardest to make it our own and achieve it. While Andy’s no longer in the band, I think we were in agreement in the first place about how the band should sound

TheMadIsraeli: And Andy was on “I” and you were on bass at the time. So in a sense you’ve kind of taken the helm of a band you were just assisting along in its goal originally. How does that feel?

Owain:  I was credited as bass/guitar for “I”, so there are some songs that Andy or I would call our own. “Alterra” for instance was all Andy, “Right to Exist” was me, some we played about 50/50 guitar.  We’re such a multi-instrumental band, it’s hard to put a finger on who’s responsible for what anymore. For example I think the first song we ever wrote together was me showing Andy how you could have different tiny Polymeters on drums over different limbs which ended up as “Intrenity”. Rich (vocals) wrote a LOT of riffs on “II”, like “Sworn to Sacrifice” (my favourite!), and Mike (drums) wrote probably the most technical “guitar-wise”, “The Call to Arms”.

(Slowly but surely, TheMadIsraeli is reviewing or re-reviewing his picks for 2011’s best albums. Today, the pick is Xerath’s second full-length.)

Few bands have impacted me in the last year more than Xerath has.  Combining the regalness of Vader, the rhythmic mind-fuckery of Meshuggah, and the bone-grinding groove of Pantera, and smothering it in grand, romantic-era orchestral overlays, they’ve been at the forefront of what appears to be a rash of extreme orchestral metal.

Other bands such as Fleshgod Apocalypse, Septic Flesh, and Gromth are also proving that the classical music of old and the metal of now are really not all that incompatible by bringing forth a style in which the metal and the orchestral are joined as one, constantly weaving in and out of each other.  It could be argued that this is the synthesis of the two most legitimate styles of music ever created, the ultimate product.

Maybe I’m being overly grandiose or overstating the importance of what’s going on here, but Xerath and other bands who are fully incorporating orchestration are hitting me the right way, breathing new life into heavy music for me.  I guess what I’m trying to say is that I have a feeling this orchestral extreme metal thing is going to become extremely prominent in the future, and I think that’s for the betterment of metal as a whole.

This is Part 3 of our list of the most infectious extreme metal songs released this year. Each day until the list is finished, I’m posting two songs that made the cut. For more details about what this list is all about and how it was compiled, read the Introduction via this link. To see the selections that preceded this one, click the Category link on the right side of the page called MOST INFECTIOUS SONGS-2011.

The first song in today’s feature comes from Deathstar Rising, the 2011 album released by Finland’s Before the Dawn. The band was started in 1999 by the prolific Tuomas Saukkonen (also a member of Black Sun Aeon, Dawn of Solace, and RoutaSielu), and that 2011 album is their sixth. Although I reviewed the band’s immediately preceding album, Soundscape of Silence (2008), I neglected Deathstar Rising on this site. Actually, I believe that qualifies as criminal neglect, because I enjoyed the fuck out of that record. As punishment, I’m hoping for probation instead of hard time.

Before the Dawn’s success comes down to two principal factors, which are fully displayed on Deathstar Rising: skilled song-writing that effectively combines hard-driving riffs and rhythms with dark, beautiful, hook-filled melodies; and, on the last four albums, an amazing one-two vocal punch delivered by Saukkonen (whose harsh delivery is killer) and bass player Lars Eikind, whose clean vocals are just as remarkable. (Yes, this band is one of our Exceptions To the Rule.)

Are you like me? Do you often fantasize about scaling the fence at a commercial airport, dashing out onto the tarmac, leaping up behind a big plane, and sticking your head in the back end of a jet engine just as the aircraft takes off? Yeah, you’re right: Everyone dreams about that, so why am I talking about something so commonplace?

Well, listening to “Reform III”, one of the songs from Xerath’s 2011 album, II, helps make the dream more vivid. You can almost feel the skin being peeled back from your face and all your hair being ripped out by the roots from the blast effect. Awesome.

Xerath have just released an official music video to accompany “Reform III”, which I watched this morning. My biggest problem with the video is that it doesn’t involve full-head-immersion at the backwash end of a jet engine. What was the director thinking? Instead, we have a tale about trusting your instincts and not trusting your co-workers, at least if your co-workers are killers. Who wear eye-liner. Watch it after the jump.

(NCS writer Israel Flanders bravely sticks his neck out with his list of the best albums released during the second quarter of 2011 — April, May, and June.)

So I’m back. Been out of it for the last week or so and just decided it was time to take some lazy days, but it’s time to get back to the fuckin’ metal and the fuckin’ headbanging action. It’s now the end of the second quarter of 2011 and I figured I would continue my top ten of every quarter series, which I started at The Metal Register. So, just for refreshers sake, let’s take a look at what I picked for Q1. In no particular order I had…

Sylosis – Edge Of The Earth
Eradication – Dreams Of Reality
TesseracT – One
Born Of Osiris – The Discovery
Rotten Sound – Cursed
Amon Amarth – Surtur Rising
Crowbar – Sever The Wicked Hand
Paul Wardingham – Assimilate/Regenerate
Times Of Grace – Hymn Of A Broken Man
Deicide – To Hell With God

So now we move on to the list for Q2. I know people are going to complain, bitch, moan, and otherwise cry at me through the comments on how often I didn’t pick your favorite tech-death band that sounds like rejected Psycroptic demos, but if I haven’t heard it, I’m not gonna pick it. Now let’s get to the albums shall we?  (after the jump . . .)

(NCS contributor Israel Flanders steps up with his nominations for the year’s two best albums of the year to date. Agree or disagree in the Comments, won’t you?)

Let’s just address something here . . . A ton of kick-ass new music has been unveiled in the year thus far, but some of the new releases have obviously been better than others.  While my choices are controversial, I’m going to talk about, IMO, the two most essential albums of 2011 to date:  Sylosis‘s Edge Of The Earth and Xerath‘s II.

I know, you’re asking me, “No TesseracT!?  No Devin Townsend!?”  Believe it or not (given my tastes), I liked Deconstruction, but it just felt like Devin repeating himself and starting on the path to self-parody, and I love One, but it was too little too late, on top of suffering from a syndrome of repetitiveness.  With that said, let’s dig into these two albums shall we?  I’m not going to go into real depth here; instead, I’m gonna let the songs I’m providing speak for themselves.  I will give a brief overview of what you are getting yourself into, though, so let’s get started.

SYLOSIS: EDGE OF THE EARTH

This is the best melodic metal you’re going to hear all year.  Sylosis has been well on the way to taking their place amongst the metal greats, but this album surely will seal the deal. What we have here is a combination of old school metalcore, early Metallica, and Forbidden that provides a stunningly vicious, thrashing melodic assault.  This band doesn’t play around one bit, wasting no time in laying down the punishment with a plethora (and I do mean a HUGE ASS plethora) of riffs — every single one of them memorable, every single one of them hitting hard with technicality and tasteful execution. (more after the jump . . .)

As expected, I haven’t had the time lately to do anything in-depth for NCS (and thanks again to all our guest post-ers for bailing me out) but I still do have time to put together quick items every now and then, just to keep the new metal flowing along its molten path from our ears to yours.

My original title for this post was “A Trio For Thursday”, because I’d heard new songs from three bands over the last 24 hours that got me excited. But then, as I was finishing this up, I came across a brand new fourth one that I just had to include. Not wanting to abandon my affinity for alliteration, I tried to think of a word beginning with “T” that means four of something.Voilà! In geometry, a tetrahedron is a shape composed of four triangular faces, three of which meet at each vertex — like a pyramid.

So, here we go — four songs, and I can guarantee you’ll like at least one of them, or your money back. The first is yet another new track from the UK’s Xerath from their forthcoming album II. The second is another track from Malfeitor, a Swedish death metal band whose new music we’ve already featured more than once recently. The third is a song by a group of Norwegian death-thrashers called Exeloume. And last, but not least, we’ve got a new song from a UK band called Detrimentum who we’ve been pumped about for a while.

Feast your ears on the tunes after the jump. Or, more accurately, allow the music to feast on your ears.

Xerath is one of our favorite UK metal bands. Their 2009 release was called “I” (that’s a Roman numeral one). We liked that album so much that we’ve written about Xerath here, here, and here in the past. If you haven’t listened to Xerath before, here’s their own description of what they do (which is pretty accurate): “Xerath is a modern cutting-edge orchestral metal band – combining crushing metal riffs and grooves with cinematic symphonic arrangements.” For short, they call the sound “orchestral groove metal” or “chug-score”.

Think of an amalgamation of Strapping Young Lad, Meshuggah, and Dimmu Borgir. Think of the kind of syncopated guitar rhythms that make djent fanboys slobber combined with meaty melodeath riffs and epic keyboards.

Xerath has finished work on a new album, entitled “II”. It’s due for release by Candlelight Records on May 3. And the reason for this post is that yesterday Xerath made the first track from that album available for streaming, plus they revealed the cover art for the album, which is an eye-catcher. We’ve got the song and the artwork after the jump . . .

This post is about Rush, “YYZ”, and Xerath (pictured above), in that order, and includes a video that will make you smile and maybe even laugh. Most likely you have no idea what we’re talking about. But look, it’s Saturday (for most of you). What else have you got to do while you’re recovering from whatever damage you did to yourself last night?

Rush is a 3-man Canadian rock band that’s been around for more than 30 years. There was a time when it would have been unnecessary to explain who they are, but times change.

Over the course of their career, they’ve accumulated 24 gold records and 14 platinum records (three of them multi-platinum). They rank fourth – behind the Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and Aerosmith – for the most consecutive gold or platinum albums by a rock band. Industry sources have estimated that worldwide, Rush has sold more than 40 million units.

Apart from being wildly popular for a long time, Rush has also been musically dynamic and inventive and has influenced many metal musicians over the years, including bands such as Dream Theater, Primus, and Symphony X.

Rush’s best-selling album of all was 1981’s Moving Pictures, which was certified quadruple platinum. The album was full of pop-friendly prog rock that got lots of radio play and greatly expanded Rush’s audience. It included one instrumental song called “YYZ” that sounds remarkably fresh today, after almost 30 years. (stay with us — more after the jump . . .)