NAME: Betraeus
THEY ARE: Technical yet visceral death metal
FROM: Manchester, UK
FOR FANS OF: Gojira, Nile, Opeth
LATEST RELEASE: 'Towards The Sun' EP (Siege Of Amida 2011)
SONGS TO CHECK OUT: Towards The Sun, Blossom Into The Void
WHERE TO FIND THEM: Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, MySpace

While the years since 'Winds Of Creation' and 'Blackwater Park' came out have been overrun with bands inspired by one or another (or both) of the bands that released those seminal records, it's refreshing to hear there are still bands able to come up with their own sound with them as reference points. This is doubly so when it's a band that manage to avoid losing sight of death metal's inherent humanity amidst the technicality, as well as keeping sight of writing songs rather than drifting beyond progression and into pretention. Betraeus are just such a band.

Manchester's got more than its fair share of new, really fucking good metal bands coming along in Britain just now, and Betraeus are another sterling example. After starting out jamming in 2009, the band came together properly in 2009 with the addition of drummer Paddy Monaghan to the line-up. They then went on to win Manchester's Metal 2 The Masses competition and won a slot at Bloodstock 2010. Their debut EP, 'Towards The Sun' (out now via Siege Of Amida), contains two tracks recorded at that very event. It also shows precisely why this is a band to keep your eye on - the potential is there in spades, and they already have some fine music to show for themselves.

We spoke to guitarist/vocalist Chris Sykes to find out more.

How did the band get started?

Eddie [Johnson, guitars] and I started out playing thrash metal in a couple of college bands. Benjamin [Edwards, bass] loves old Metallica stuff, as do I, and he noticed that influence one time after a performance. We got jamming and started to write some cool material from the offset. I think we spent something like 18 months looking for a drummer once we decided on what kind of musical direction we wanted to take - it was a long 18 months, but worth it! Paddy [Monaghan, drums] stepped in and joined the band when he was only 16.

Did you start out sounding like you do now, or have you changed over time?

We sounded A LOT different at the start. Eddie was into Iron Maiden and I was into Metallica. We formed a thrash metal project for 2 years that we also took outside of college, playing around Manchester. Towards the end of the second year we started to involve music theory a lot more to create interesting melodies and rhythms, even throwing in the odd clean section. This was also the time we both massively got into Opeth. I soon fell in love with Akerfeldt's vocal style too. We still strived to sound fresh and unique but never wanted to lose that aggression from our thrash metal roots, so we started to gain influences from bands like Decapitated and Gojira. Another year later and we had finally managed to find 2 other musicians that shared the same musical vision and our current sound soon started to evolve from then.

How was playing Bloodstock? Why did you include some live tracks from that set on your debut EP?

Playing Bloodstock 2010 was massive for us! It was THE event that kick started our career. It is this reason we wanted to put the live tracks on our EP, to mark that special occasion and because that's what real metal is all about: the live show! We actually played Bloodstock twice - we ended up doing an acoustic set  on the Jager stage as well as playing the New Blood stage. The acoustic set was thrown together with 2 days notice so it involved a few covers which was fun to do. We got to Bloodstock because of the Metal 2 the Masses competition, winning a place over the rest of Manchester's bands. We will always be thankful to Simon Hall for giving us that opportunity and I encourage any and every unsigned metal band to get involved next year!

Betraeus are on tour as of next week, playing the following dates:
Tuesday December 6 - Swansea, Sin City
Thursday December 8 - London, Purple Turtle
Friday December 9 - Brighton, Belushis
Sunday December 11 - Glasgow, 13th Note
Thursday December 15 - Leicester, Soundhouse
Saturday December 17 - Manchester, Satan's Hollow
Sunday December 18 - Bury, The Towler
Monday December 19 - Leeds, Escobar