Interviews : The Poisoned Kings interview; Norse, Aeon of Horus, Hadal Maw, Apparitions of Null

In one of the more interesting an unexpected touring lineups of the year Melbourne’s Hadal Maw, Canberra’s Aeon of Horus, the Southern Highlands’ Norse and Sydney’s Apparitions of Null are teaming up to celebrate the launch of Norse’s new EP Pest (which you can read our review of here). To bring everybody to up to speed, and introduce you to any of the four bands that you don’t know, here’s our rapidfire interview with the whole bunch…

Norse

Your releases have maintained quite a natural, minimalist recording style, rather than going heavily-produced. Is this a conscious stab at the sound of music these days or simply the way you feel your specific music is best prestented?

Somewhere along the line pop music production values crept into the realm of extreme metal. I’m not at all interested in creating a sound that completely fails to transfer any form of emotion and it is beyond my comprehension why anyone else would want that kind of sound.

Tell us about the inspiration and the process behind your new EP “Pest”.

The main drive behind creating pest was to make something unique, bleak, aggressive and to break all the rules using standard instruments in a way that they are not meant to be used.

The artwork is hauntingly beautiful. What’s the meaning behind it?

The artwork represents the same feelings as the music. Bleak and void while having some haunting atmospheres.

Why should people come and watch you live?

Why should people do anything?

Aeon of Horus

There was a three year gap between your debut and your latest album “Existence”, which seems like a long gap considering how well recieved “The Embodiment of Darkness and Light” was. What happened during that time?

During this time we endured several significant line up changes which of course will take time away from the creative process to solidify the new outfit. Once we had secured our current line up we retreated to the jam room for many months refining and evolving our sound in the attempt to develop something fresh and was a genuine representation of that new line up. During this process we released our 2011 EP ‘Exile’ which was used as a transition from the old to the new. It included reworked songs from The Embodiment. As well as a new track from what would come to be Existence.

How do you feel the new one is an improvement or evolution from your past material?

As a whole we are extremely proud of what we achieved on ‘Existence’ As stated in the previous question we wanted to create something which reflected our many musical interests as well as creating something powerful and thought provoking. In our opinion we believe we achieved this, for where we were at the time at least.
The songs off ‘Existence’ have been said to be more coherent and dynamic which to us is a great evolution from the past.

For those outside Canberra, the metal scene there is a bit mysterious, how is it going at the moment? The Basement is definitely one of the best heavy music venues in the country.

The Canberra metal scene in all honesty has never been without its ups and downs. It can be a very challenging city to play with such a small scene and limited options in places to play. The influx in international bands touring also has taken its toll on the local scene. In saying this when it is up it is really up! If you know what I mean? The bands that have come out of Canberra, dead or alive, have been some of the best this country has produced.

I think a clear indication of the health of the scene is evident with such bands as Inhuman Remnants, Tortured, Wretch and The Levitation Hex. All of which are killing it and are great to see live.

Why should people come and watch you live?

To evoke questions into your own Existence through sonic manipulation while experiencing darkness and beauty through a dynamic and energetic performance.

Hadal Maw

Obviously the biggest thing happening in Hadal Maw is the upcoming debut album. It has been near two years since the first demo came out, which had a pretty huge response locally, run us through the timeline of what has happened over that time.

Basically it’s been a balancing act of getting this album written and recorded while getting out there and playing shows wherever possible. We elected to not waste time in going interstate so we’ve tried taking up every offer we get from around the country. It’s really flattering but it also means you have to keep heading back which can break the flow of recording. But that’s a great quality of problem to have, we’re certainly not complaining.

Will the demo tracks, “Merchant of the Aeonian Pulse” and “Shadow Caste” appear on the album as well?

Well we figure if we’re not capable of generating enough material that tops those two songs for an album, something’s wrong. But it would be great to do some quality live recordings of those songs down the track just so they get a bigger sound with live drums.

Is there an ETA on release and what the plans are once it comes out?

As of this interview we’re sending the album off for mastering, so we’ll be ready to announce an official release date with pre orders as soon as possible. Once it’s out, it’ll basically be a promotional onslaught so we should probably apologise in advance. Won’t be anything fancy, just an old school shitload of gigs and a new school shitload of videos etc. Hopefully we’ll hit a few places we haven’t been yet then start album #2, we already have half an album worth of material up our sleeves.

Why should people come and watch you live?

Our bassist. If a Dragon Ball Z fight scene was a bass player, we have him.

Apparitions of Null

Apparitions of Null definitely stand out as something a bit different in the Australian scene. What were the inspirations and how did the band come about in the first place?

The band came together never intending to create something so different but over time it became apparent to all of us that we really wanted to create something massive and totally unlike what musicians have attempted before. We all have our own individual influences from classical guitar composers like Heitor Villa-Lobos to prog bands like Pink Floyd but if we had to sum up our influences as a group it would probably look something like Opeth, Obscura, Ne Obliviscaris, Meshuggah and Gojira. Ultimately though, we aim to create something totally different and I don’t think we could be accurately compared to any of those artists.

Your first demo was Part 1 of a 26 minute track titled “Kaleidoscopes”. Can you give us some hints as to what to expect from the following 19 minutes?

Hint 1: We have just finished tracking “Kaleidoscopes” in its entirety to be released as an EP. If you can wait just a few more weeks, we you can hear the full thing for yourself (be sure to follow our page for updates!)

Hint 2: The rest of the song contains many, many different styles but they all contribute to form the same overall feel and mood as each individual part.

Are long, or perhaps multi-part tracks, something people should expect in the future as part of Apparitions’ style, or is it simply how the first song came to be?

Yes.

We never expected to be writing music the way we are and we could never have predicted how our collective composing style would produce such unusual results. So far we have written the 26-minute long “Kaleidoscopes” and we followed that up with 29-minute monster “Neurofragmentation”. Neither of those were deliberately forced to be that long, it was just the natural result of the story we were trying to tell. It’s hard to say for sure what future songs will hold but we seem to have a pattern of creating songs that are journeys rather than single moments.

Why should people come and watch you live?

Because you have never seen a band perform a single, half-hour song for their entire set (and even if you have, why wouldn’t you go see it again?)

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