AEONS ABYSS: RESURRECTION AND EVOLUTION An Interview with Paul, the Death Metal Poet
AEONS ABYSS: RESURRECTION AND EVOLUTION
An Interview with Paul, the Death Metal Poet
In an era where extreme metal can feel like a game of "who can play fastest," Melbourne's Aeons Abyss remember that songs need to actually go somewhere. Their latest LP, Resurrection, is stacked with riffs that cut with razor-sharp intent, songwriting that demonstrates genuine intelligence, and lyrics that explore mortality, existential dread, and societal collapse with actual nuance. This isn't pure death metal worship or straightforward thrash revival—it exists in that hallowed territory between early Death, Possessed, and the more violent edges of German thrash, where brains meet brutality.
What truly separates Resurrection from the pack is its lyrical depth. Adelaide-based vocalist Paul brings genuine literacy and thematic cohesion to extreme metal, crafting what could be called "death metal poetry"—metaphor, imagery, and thought in a genre that too often defaults to gore-for-gore's-sake. For this album, Paul reversed the typical songwriting process entirely, writing the complete narrative first before the band composed music around his words. The result? A concept album exploring resurrection as literal and metaphorical—a creature trapped in endless cycles of death and rebirth, reliving past lives in a besieged city, all serving as allegory for nationalism, consciousness, and humanity's vanity projects of immortality.
We caught up with Paul to discuss the band's evolution from their '90s origins, the reversal of their creative process, and the philosophical weight behind their most essential statement yet.
Aeons Abyss has now released three albums. Looking back from the debut through to Resurrection, how would you describe the band's evolution?
When Steve and I reformed Aeons Abyss in 2017, it was to record songs written between 1990 and 1993. We'd only had decent recordings of two tracks—Darkness Falls and Discorporated—that we'd laid down in '92 as part of a friend's sound engineering studies. The EP Pity Eloquence and LP Impenitent largely follow our chronological progression from classic heavy metal and thrash into melodic death metal.
By the time we finished, Steve had written new material that became Terror Manifest, where you can hear more black metal, grindcore, and doom influences creeping in. Live performance has definitely shaped my vocal approach—it's heightened the expressive intent of my phrasing. For Resurrection, I rehearsed the songs for several months before settling on the final lyrics.
The strongest evolution has been the ambition to tell a continuous story across an album. This began with Terror Manifest and has strengthened again in Resurrection. The challenge to portray particular circumstances and emotions organically determines each song's style.
Melbourne's extreme metal scene has always been fiercely creative. How has being embedded in this community shaped your sound? And how do you manage being based in Adelaide while the band's in Melbourne?
The local scene is incredibly vibrant. We've been privileged to play with so many talented bands. What stands out is the uniqueness of these artists' music and the theatricality of their shows. It gives us confidence to pursue our distinct musical journey.
The metal scene in general has undergone a renaissance—legendary bands visiting Australia for the first time, constantly discovering new favourites. Good music stands the test of time, and metal's inherent creativity is reflected in its ever-expanding plethora of subgenres.
My being based in South Australia has curtailed live opportunities, but the guys recently played an instrumental set, and they deserve to be heard more often. The synergy between them makes it easy for me to drop in and scream along when possible. If we do fewer shows as a full ensemble, I'm all the more determined to make them memorable.
The approach for Resurrection was particularly intriguing—you wrote lyrics first, then the music was composed around them. What prompted this reversal?
Previously, I'd nearly always written lyrics to fit existing music, with one exception: Darkness Falls from Impenitent. The usual process has me listening repeatedly to music, trying to engender a story that it's portraying. But it's hard to fully articulate those images and ideas. Too often, I've had to explain my lyrics' meanings, which can only mean they miss the mark artistically.
For Terror Manifest, I had the entire instrumental album before I began writing. This lent itself to a continuous story, like a concept album. Ultimately, though, the lyrics didn't flow with the seamless inevitability of a good story. The song with the strongest articulation of an idea is Darkness Falls, and it's not coincidental that the music was written to the lyrics—it's a tradition from classical music where mundane libretto words are brought to life with composition.
For Resurrection, I asked if I could write lyrics first. This allowed me to write a more cogent story that they could flesh out with music. I'm pleased with the result. The story is more visceral because of the music created for it, expressing emotions I lacked the skill to put into words.
As someone crafting what could be called "death metal poetry," how do you balance visceral intensity with cerebral, literary qualities?
The most striking horror stories imply violence more than they portray it, exposing the grotesque lurking beneath a veneer of respectability. This seems the most accurate portrayal of evil as it exists in our society—brutality loosed by noble ideas, atrocities made possible because perpetrators are convinced their actions are justified.
While there'll always be a place for frankly gore-filled lyrics, I prefer a more nuanced approach that better suits the textures of the songs. Recalling lyrics that captivated me—from Slayer's "Temptation" or Iron Maiden's "Still Life"—I want to emulate their subtlety. Violence without context seems banal. I'll often have a general argument I want to expound, but disguise it in allegory.
The title Resurrection carries significant weight. What are you resurrecting—musically, thematically, personally?
It's a literal resurrection, albeit a frustrated one. The story is about a creature resurrected in the makeshift graveyard of a besieged city. It grows from a nebulous form into a differentiated animal while ascending through the soil. The further it rises, the more human it becomes, but the moment it becomes fully human, it realises it's smothered beneath the surface and struggles vainly before dying.
The corpse descends again and de-differentiates into the original gelatinous form that returns to life. It becomes trapped in an endless cycle of death and rebirth. With each death, it relives a death from one of its past lives before burial—and this describes a war that becomes the story of the rest of the album.
What core themes drive Resurrection?
Resurrection is only the first half of a complete story that will hopefully be realized in a subsequent album. There are historical and philosophical themes underpinning the entire narrative. One is a critique of nationalism, particularly as it sharpens into destructive partisanship.
More fundamentally, it considers whether the concept that life separates into distinct organisms might just be an illusion of consciousness. This illusion underpins the irrational fear of death and goads us into various vanity projects through which we hope to realise vicarious immortality by association with enduring institutions. Nationalism is parodied as just one of these vanity projects.
What distinguishes Resurrection from your previous albums in terms of the death-thrash sound you've cultivated?
The influences on our music continue to evolve and diversify while the signature sound of Aeons Abyss pervades this album. The distinctness of individual instrument voices within that signature is stronger than ever, resulting in greater creativity because those musical influences are distinct for each musician.
The lyric-first approach has guided the ingenious way each song is structured—that's this album's distinguishing feature.
Death-thrash requires balancing brutality with precision. How do you maintain that balance while keeping songs dynamic?
Melody rules. Our primary purpose is to create innovative riffs and develop them through a song. This engenders a story which dictates their brutality and gives each song—as well as the album as a whole—a satisfying completeness. Solos exist to sound like additional or alternative vocals. They're first and foremost expressions of emotion.
After three albums, do you feel Aeons Abyss has fully realised its vision?
Aeons Abyss exists now for the same reason it revived in 2017—to give expression to our take on life. This, like our musical tastes, is ever-evolving, ever restless, and unlikely to realise one ultimate vision. I'm keen to complete the storyline begun in Resurrection. Beyond that, there are other stories buried barely within my subconscious, the germ of ideas writhing like uneasy corpses, scratching towards the surface.
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