Sunday single: Head-banging tune

"Sunday Single" has featured many musical styles since it kicked off in February: hip-hop, folk, avant-garde jazz, children's songs and alternative rock. And some of those tunes have even featured a hefty guitar kick.

But "Sunday Single" has missed out one genre in particular: heavy metal. That's all about to change, so throw a devil-horns salute and prepare to bang your head to "Eye for an Eye" by Nephilim.

To hear this ferocious bit of metal, log on to www.SacTicket.com/sundaysingle – and please, make sure all small animals have been cleared from the room.

Nephilim, a leading band on the local metal scene, was founded in 2004 as part of Skip's Music's "Stairway to Stardom" program. But, first, the group needed a name – something that sounded kind of evil and would look cool on a T-shirt.

" 'Nephilim' is from an ancient text kind of thing and appears a couple of times in the Old Testament," says guitarist Brett Rechtfertig. "There was a certain group of angels, and they went to Earth and got banished from heaven for mating with mortal women. The children they had were giants, and the giants were the Nephilim and they were looked down upon by God. It's just a cool name, and has interesting lore behind it."

These long-haired dudes with crushing rhythms and shredding guitar solos ended up winning this battle-of-the-bands style contest. And they kept the metal going after "Stairway to Stardom," turning Nephilim into a gigging band.

"I didn't even think we'd win because metal bands almost never do," says Rechtfertig. "We weren't taking it too seriously, but I had a lot of fun with the solo sections and we ended up winning. We kept coming up with songs that we thought were pretty good."

Nephilim parlayed some of those songs into an album called "Mortality," which was released in 2004. "Eye for an Eye" comes from this debut, and Rechtfertig penned the song back when he was a student at Granite Bay High School.

"I wrote the lyrics during Spanish class and health class," he says. "I think I'd heard the phrase 'eye for an eye' and thought that was cool. I decided to start writing about it, and it grew ideas in my mind. But from a lyrical standpoint, it's about someone who's about to give forth the judgment that someone will get. It's kind of a karma song."

Rechtfertig cringes a bit when he hears "Eye for an Eye." To him the song represents a younger, less-complex version of Nephilim, and the band's now mining a more progressive sound. The guitarist's own tastes are shifting toward jazz improvisation, especially the harmonic adventures of John Coltrane.

"Coltrane changed my whole outlook and what I look for in music," says Rechtfertig. "I don't even really listen to metal much lately."

But there's still the power and speed that draws Rechtfertig and Nephilim back to metal. The band plans to explore its more expansive side on an upcoming album – and it'll be sure to sound best with the volume cranked to "11."

"I'm trying to write the music I want to hear," says Rechtfertig. "That's the goal of our new music: It has really heavy grooves, but it's not the same ol' cliché riffs. As far as I'm concerned, I'm not playing metal. I'm playing music."

About the writer:

• Call Bee pop music critic Chris Macias, (916) 321-1253, or e-mail him at cmacias@sacbee.com. Read his blog at www.SacTicket.com/ beatnonstop.