Poison The Well's lead guitarist Ryan Primack muses on catharsis and returning with new music 16-plus years since their previous studio album.
We often view time as an arcade, a dimly lit path with a dazzling light at the end all conceptualised by the fear of the journey and its inevitable destination.
For Poison The Well, times' passage is an illuminated road trip through shifting slopes and wind-battered bends; so much so, the thought of destination dissolves.
Their journey becomes about looking out the window, absorbing life as they pass through it before it combines into a mature myriad of catharsis.
That catharsis became their next stop, 'Peace In Place'. "I think catharsis or tension that doesn't really release until the very last possible minute is something that I always aim to try to capture a sound of," Ryan says.
When asked what it's like to be back after a 16-year hiatus, Ryan pauses momentarily, merely a blip, before saying with one-word wonderment, "surreal".
A truer word could not be expanded by fans, who after Poison The Well dropped two new tracks, 'Thoroughbreds' and 'Everything Hurts', earlier this year, flocked to social media to announce their various degrees of shock-laced excitement. . . like no time had passed.
Released in March, 'Peace In Place' doses you in a sense of apricity within metamorphosis, ruminative of the pilgrimage one must take to become the person you are today.
Heavy in their foundational metalcore sound, the track list transitions the listener through shared pain, self-reflection, control and growth.
Songs such as 'Wax Mask', 'A Wake Of Vultures' and 'Weeping Tones' amplify necessary transitions from the past to the future being.
When discussing the metalcore genre and its descriptive shrinking to 'loud' and/ or 'angry', Ryan traverses his own experiences.
"Being a person that plays aggressive music, I always want to fight away from it being one dimensional because angry music really isn't just angry because it's frustrated, it's sad, it's contemplative, it's dismissed. It's all of those things all at once."
Primack then circles back to catharsis. "Once you get through ten or so songs of that, I think you automatically feel a catharsis because there's a level of release, like a bunch of different facets got touched.
"I feel like they've sort of exercised for lack of a better word. Anger is just a nice word that people use to tie up all of those emotions at once. I really want to try to represent all of those kinds of feelings."
As pioneers of metalcore, Poison The Well encase their songs in instruments that do not compete but beat the skull in combative, home-driving breakdowns.
'Peace In Place' shadows the heaviest to lightest emotions, drowning the mind in a cacophony of pivotal imagery and injecting the self with thrumming adrenaline akin to the same sound as a horror movie soundtrack.
Ryan explores the influences of the album, notably mentioning Italian composer Ennio Morricone (who worked on films such as 'The Thing' and 'Kill Bill' as well as all of Sergio Leone's movies) and, fascinatingly, John Barry who worked on early James Bond soundtracks.
"Growing up, my dad was a French horn player and so orchestral music was always a part of my life," Ryan says.
"I definitely leaned in pretty hard when I got into my early 20s, learning about a lot of that soundtrack stuff. It definitely creeps in the sense of drama [that] you don't get in any other kind of music."
Poison The Well 2026 Tour Dates
Sun 7 Jun - Magnet House (Perth)
Tue 9 Jun - Lion Arts Factory (Adelaide)
Thu 11 Jun - 170 Russell (Melbourne)
Fri 12 Jun - Metro Theatre (Sydney)
Sat 13 Jun - King Street Bandroom (Newcastle)
Sun 14 Jun - The Princess Theatre (Brisbane)
