Xerath cited their influences as Strapping Young Lad, Dimmu Borgir, and Opeth as well as film score composition and an eclectic mix of other bands and genres.

Xerath was the brainchild of its first guitarist, Andy Phillips, who formed the band in 2007 with drummer Michael Pitman, bassist Owain Williams and Richard Thomson as an experiment to combine film score style composition and classical music with technical heavy metal.

[7][8][9][10] By the time their second album, II (Two), was released on 3 May 2011, Owain Williams was the lead-guitarist and the band was a well established success, they were touring China and India, and were often seen at Europe's music festivals such as Euroblast.

[14] The average of one lead guitarist per album released did not dampen the success of the band, but in 2016 both the bassist and drummer changed and splits in the direction that Xerath needed to go started to appear.

Two members went on to team up with Jørn Lande, ZP Theart and others in the band Pentakill, whose second album (prefixed with a Xerath-like II) topped the iTunes metal chart shortly thereafter.