Artist description Melodic/Grinding Death

Music Style Death Metal

Musical Influences Morbid Angel, Cannibal Corpse, Aborted, Emperor

Similar Artists Cannibal Corpse, Morbid Angel, Slayer, Aborted, Death

Artist History Aeons of Old began modestly in 1998, when the band, then known as Anaemica, formed as a part of Antwerp's burgeoning metal scene. The quintet - all self-taught musicians - delivers a wide variety of styles, drawing inspiration from both death and black metal, as well as old Slayer, Sepultura and Megadeth. The band also played a clutch of well received live shows with the likes of Ancient Rites, Axamenta, Mystica, Sudden Death and Sfagnum. The roots of Aeons of Old stretch back to the time, over half a decade ago, when lead guitarist Paul Broeren and rhythm guitarist Dirk Van Haesbroeck first met in the Antwerp suburb of Deurne. Neither musician had any previous band experience when they started jamming thrash covers together. A few months later, before joining the guitar tandem, Donald Van Haesbroeck began playing the bass guitar at his brother's urging. The primal incarnation of the band became a reality when death metal vocalist Kevin Van Staey engaged in writing lyrics, singing and playing keyboards. For a brief period of time, the quartet adopted the name Catacomb, eventually changing to Anaemica by fall 1997. From the very beginning Paul arranged nearly all songs - and he remains the thriving force behind the music until the present day. Something was still lacking however ... At the tail end of 1997, Paul began to write faster and more extreme songs using ex-Drowning frontman Jeroen Buysse as drummer. Conversely, the latter now plays guitar again in the progressive black metal band Sfagnum. Notwithstanding the fact that Anaemica already had a good singer, the band felt it needed something to distinguish itself in order to stand out. Therefore black metal vocalist Tom Cornelis completed the ranks early 1998 ; combining the deep grunts from Kevin and the raw screams from Tom would prove to be a great asset to the band's uniqueness. The day Frank Sinatra died, the band at long last felt ready to make the outside world suffer for their six months hard labor of sweaty rehearsals and sleepless nights of song writing, and they were able to play their first gig in their home town. Even if the stage time was rather short, the band had the time to expose its brutality on stage. As the majority of the band was corpse-painted and Tom screamed as a natural, people stuck the tag 'black metal' on the band. This interpretation ignored the broad spectrum of influences to be found in their music, but nevertheless the band continued satisfying crowds like that for months. Around the autumnal equinox of that same year, Kevin left the band. Henceforth, keyboards were left out and Tom took over the former vocalist's death parts with ease. The remaining and current five members of Anaemica went on to tape a nameless promo, which was released February 1999. This home-recorded promo of poor sound quality was only spread among close friends in very limited numbers. By the time autumn rolled around, the five-piece got to play with Ancient Rites, the founding fathers of Belgian black metal, but due to circumstances, few people showed up. Another year passed … The bands' activities had been in the doldrums for several seasons when Anaemica realized it had become indispensable to bundle its efforts in order to clear the hurdles that kept it from evolving and growing. Things were about to change for the better … On the brink of the 3rd millennium, recording sessions were being held in the practice room, and a website was created. This eventually lead to the release of the ' Great Vengeance … And Furious Anger 'CDemo ( 2001 ), almost two years after the promo. When this CDemo surfaced, it opened doors to many opportunities the band was denied prior to its recording. In many regards one could say that 2001 was a vintage year for Anaemica, as it sees no less than ten concerts and five interviews. Furthermore, both the G.V.&.F.A. promotional mp3 tracks are featured on compilation CDs, namely Bone Box and Drenched In Blood . No efforts were made towards record labels to this point. Anaemica is currently working on developing a stronger following, playing in different venues both small and big, and expanding its repertoire. With the firm line-up, the band might be diving into the studio before 2002 for a highly professional recording of a song, more in particular ' End All Life '. In late 2002, Anaemica changed names to Aeons of Old, heralding the dawn of a new era of creativity within extreme metal.

Group Members Paul Broeren - lead guitars Dirk Van Haesbroeck - rhythm guitars Jeroen Buysse - drums Dirk Broeren - all vocals Donald Van Haesbroeck - bass guitars

Instruments Guitars, Bass, Drums

Albums Promo 99, Great Vengeance and Furious Anger

Press Reviews "The guitar work is very advanced with tight song structures, well written riffs and some well placed, skillful solos... extremely impressive" - D-fleshed zine geocities.com/dfleshed "6 supreme hymns of insane grinding anger and melodic annihilation." Wouter Roemers, http://www.deathmetal.be

Location Oelegem, Antwerp - Belgium

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