Emerging from Brisbane and the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia, Gladiolus has burst onto the progressive metal scene with an audacious and dynamic debut, quickly capturing the attention of the country’s prog community. After teasing their unique sound with the release of two powerful singles—”Chrysalis” in July 2022 and “The Wanderer” later that year—the band has now unleashed their highly anticipated debut album, Inertia. Released on September 27, 2024, Inertia is an 80-minute journey through life, death, and the vast emotional terrain in between.
Blending complex musicianship with a wide spectrum of influences, Gladiolus isn’t afraid to answer progressive metal’s challenges. The band establish their sound carefully by combining ambient soundscapes, crushing riffs, and haunting vocals, designed to captivate. With Inertia, Gladiolus invite fans of the genre on a voyage through the depths of the human psyche, and with their ‘go big or go home’ approach, they are determined to make a lasting impact on the progressive music scene.
Congratulations on your debut album, Inertia! What was the inspiration behind the concept of the album, and what message do you hope listeners take away from it?
Dan Hendrex (vocals, guitars, synths): Cheers, Niko! It’s been a long time coming, and we’re so glad we can finally share it with everyone.
Inertia is about a lot of things… It’s about love, loss, rage, fear, guilt, and grief. It’s about facing adversity head on, and coming to terms with the reality that sometimes you’ll fail anyway, even if you try your hardest. It’s about self-growth, and it’s about self-doubt. It’s about navigating through the many challenges that affect our trajectories in life – not all of which have variables that are within our control.
Part un-alterable fate and part relentless grind, this life is both what you make it and what it makes you. We hope that this record helps people to know that they’re not alone in their struggles, and give them comfort in knowing every experience is an opportunity to learn and grow. It’s possible to go to hell and come back stronger, and it’s okay to need help to do it.
Your debut singles, “Chrysalis” and “The Wanderer,” showcase different sides of your sound. How do you balance the atmospheric and heavier elements in your music?
Dan: I like to think we try not to think too much about it. The entirety of Inertia’s main structure was written instrumentally over the space of a year and a half or so, with no real set goals in mind beyond making something we’d enjoy listening to. We’d kinda just sit down and write whatever felt right.
You can hear the influences in some of the music. “Myopic” was written when I was on a Periphery kick, you’ll hear smatterings of Devin Townsend’s Ki and Porcupine Tree in Inertia, and “Flicker” has a touch of Opeth and some Caligula’s Horse-y bones in it. We let emotion and intuition guide us in selecting what any given song needed. If it needed to breathe, we’d try to give it space to do that. The same can be said about when it needed to be more punishing. Sometimes a song just needs to go hard front-to-back, but a bit of push and pull never hurts when it’s called for!
The resultant culmination doesn’t really root itself firmly in either a heavier landscape or a lighter one, it instead sweeps that range pretty broadly. The Sword Lily (or Gladiolus) is a good allegory for this – gentle and beautiful but also striking and powerful.
As a progressive rock/metal band from Brisbane, how has the Australian prog scene influenced your music and development as a band?
Zak Muller (guitars): I’ve always felt that the prog scene in Australia is a tightly-knit yet very strong community. There also seems to be a prominent alternative rock/metal influence in a lot of prog bands over here (such as Karnivool, Caligula’s Horse, COG, Dead Letter Circus and Reliqa) which I would argue stems from leaning towards songwriting and emotional impact over technical prowess. I don’t think it’s significant enough to call Australian prog its own subgenre, but I do feel it gives us somewhat of a niche. All of us in the band have very overlapping musical tastes, which makes the songwriting process, or at least developing the skeletons, very enjoyable.
You’ve mentioned influences like Karnivool, Opeth, and Devin Townsend. How have these artists shaped your sound, and are there any other unexpected influences that have impacted your music?
Zak: For the influences you’ve provided above, I would say that Karnivool gives us a lot of insight into how songwriting structures unfold to tell a story. While their later works are very much rooted in progressive rock, it’s very evident that their songs are emotionally charged, rather than technically. We try to take the same approach when we write – consciously always trying to push ourselves instrumentally, yet still prioritising and leaving space for the vocals. This segues really well into Opeth as an influence; a majority of their tracks showcase a contrasting loud/quiet dynamic between sections. The opening track off of Blackwater Park, “The Leper Affinity” is a great example of this. The first 4 and a half minutes are a great showcase of fascinating rhythm guitar chord shapes, eerie progressions and brutal gutturals before relenting into a serene acoustic section with add9 arpeggios and Akerfeldt’s beautiful singing voice.
A good reference for both of these is “Flicker,” which showcases a contrasting dynamic between sections, is moderately technicial while still pushing the vocal performance to the forefront. It’s probably the hardest song to play live due to its length and technicality/finesse of some of the sections!
Devin’s influence can mostly be heard in the title track, “Inertia.” Not only do we tune to Open C (like Devy), but the first “verse” section has a guitar line implying the C dorian mode in it’s melody, which I’ve always felt is reminiscent of Devin’s occasional approach to atonal guitar parts. “Anti-Product” off of the New Black (Strapping Young Lad) springs to mind as a good example of this and “Bastard” off of Ocean Machine, while very much rooted in the key of Eb minor, has a prominent tri-tone interval in the second half of the verse riff which has always stuck me as slightly esoteric.
The journey from releasing singles to launching an 80-minute concept album is a big step. What challenges did you face while writing and recording Inertia, and how did you overcome them?
Zak: We faced a lot of hurdles throughout the production of Inertia. It was the first time any of us had faced such a massive project, let alone it being the first release for a new band. It was basically fully demoed out in 2018. By that point, a couple of us were still music students at Griffith Uni, which gave us unlimited 24 hour access to their recording facilities. As such, we had ample resources and chose to self-produce and engineer the record ourselves. Doing so proved to be a massive learning curve for us as we slowly but steadily discovered how to do so.
After tracking the song skeletons, life started getting in the way. Between the pandemic, marriages, deaths, births, floods, graduations and other life changes, we barely had time to breathe. We left it long enough that we were almost afraid for it to be done.
A lot of the internal delays we faced pre-COVID can be accounted to trialling out different vocalists for a few years before encouraging Dan to take the helm and give it a go. He was initially terrified of the concept out of concerns that he’d ruin the record, but with time, love and patience, he found the courage to press on and we’re all elated at the result; he did a fantastic job and made the record what it is.
Inertia explores themes of life, death, and everything in between. Can you dive deeper into the album’s lyrical themes and how they connect to the music?
Dan: Anson and I wrote all the lyrics for this album together, and a lot of the theming is around trauma, loss and grief, and the different ways we process it while growing and changing.
Earlier songs on the album represent a violent, angry response to the trauma; something that can be hard to cage if we don’t have the experience or the tools to process things properly. We can lash out at our loved ones or even worse, battle our own ruthless self-critic internally. We might think we see the answer, and pig-headedly rush the situation head-on without thought in the belief that we can beat it on our own. There’s lots of heavy here… the front half is very much so the more “metal” half of the album.
“Tremors” is the moment where it all comes crashing down around you. Resilience is a good quality to have, but it’s not just a bump in the road this time, it’s something you might carry for the rest of your life. The way the guitars wrap around each other bring a sense of anxiety, and the growing distress in the vocals as the song progresses show the desperate clamour before the meltdown. You can hear the internal voice goading you… “I’m insurmountable” it says, “give up”. Eventually it becomes too much and you fold.
From there, the violent storm simmers a bit, and the album moves to a more thoughtful place. There’s self-reflection in a lot of tracks like “Flicker,” which explores trauma’s relationship with anger and “The Wanderer,” the first half of which delves into anxiety and paralysis in the face of your own future. We dig deep into relationships as well; “Asymptotes” is about two people who want the same thing but can’t meet in the middle to achieve it together, and the title track explores the negative effects our loved ones’ expectations can have on us.
We try to weave the music around these things, and the contrast between light and heavy in our tracks allows us to tackle themes lyrically from both a calm/analytical mind and a passionate/reactionary angle within the same track. There’s many points in Inertia where long periods of calm self-reflection wrapped in long reverb tails and sweet timbres will quickly give way to a raw, emotional outburst with heavy tones and belted harmonies,entirely discarding all the calculated logic and reason that preceded it.
Your songs are known for their intricate guitar work and dynamic soundscapes. Can you describe the creative process when it comes to composing your music?
Anson Nesci (bass, synths): We’re all about playing with dynamics and creating soundscapes. A lot of the more intricate guitar work is built around creating space, not filling it. We write to build tension, then relieve it. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. Sometimes we set out to make the listener hold their breath for a really long time, which can be very unsettling and builds a lot of tension. This is why the tail end of “Disintegrator” hits so hard. The listener is essentially plunged into the oceans depths for a minute or two, the thudding heartbeat getting more and more insistent until your head finally breaches the surface, and you can breathe. You fill your lungs and you feel powerful.
We don’t set out structural diagrams for our songs either. The arrangement is entirely dependent on what feels right. Some of our songs are through composed with little repetition, others follow a more standard pop format. For the synths, and some of the key parts – I can hear the implied harmonics in the guitar work and I emphasise them with these supporting instruments. Slowly layering these things together and letting everything breathe is a big part of the creative process. If we find that we’ve just made the perfect bed for a solo or a more important vocal part, you’d better believe we’ll put one there. If the part allows a follow-on section to be more impactful, we’ll leave it without an attention-grabbing top-line. Dynamics naturally play into this.
Dan’s vocals on “The Wanderer” provide a brooding yet powerful presence. How do you approach vocals in terms of both melody and storytelling?
Anson: Vocals took the most time overall. The lyricism and the storytelling had to be just right. Sometimes Dan and I would sit there for hours making no progress. Sometimes we could smash through things in no time at all. Because we did lyrics and vocals last after everything else had been finalised (the Tool approach), they were kind of restricted in what we could do with the lead lines.
I did a bit of producing when it came to Dan’s delivery, “Throw some more Jack Black into this bit.” “Channel Devin Townsend here.” “Can you please falsetto octave double the lead line?” Dan is a true vocal talent. To be able to demand that of him and just have him do it at the drop of a hat is something special. His sense for harmony and vocal layering is right up there with the pros! Sometimes I would get carried away and lose sight of the intended vocal vibe for a section, and Dan would be quick to tell me. We balance each other out a lot and the songs really benefit from our collaboration on the vocal parts
Lyrics were a highly collaborative effort between Dan and I. If I think about a concept for a while I eventually will spit out a stream of consciousness poetry dump that we can refine into the right syllabic count for each part it needs to fit to. A common theme is applying the concept we’re exploring to a mundane task. There’s a section in “Flicker” that’s about learning to tie your shoes and then having nobody else to tie them for you once you have the skill. If you apply the concepts of grief, relationships, and ill-fortune to this – it’s easy to produce lyrics that you can massage into place. Dan has a really good knack for reigning in my imagery and abstractions when it comes to doing this.
The main rule we follow is “Show, don’t tell, unless it’s impactful to do so.”
Gladiolus is known for blending progressive rock and metal with other genre elements. What genres or sounds outside of prog influence your work, and how do you incorporate them into your music?
Anson: It’s not just sounds outside of prog, it’s also visual media! Watercolour paintings and pastel tones are a big physical influence towards Inertia. I approached Australian artist, Isabella Andrews, specifically because I was familiar with the work she had done with watercolours, and I knew she could bring the vision we had for the music into a physical form. This is why the production on Inertia is not as processed or as heavy as that of our peers. We needed it to be more raw, innocent, and pure – as the album explores many aspects of vulnerability and grief, but it’s also an album that matures throughout the duration, and the production really reflects that.
As for sounds and genres within the musical world, there are a lot of post hardcore and post metal influences in here, as well as some purely ambient artists. The Ocean, Cult of Luna, Isis, Neurosis, Boards of Canada, Biosphere, etc.
The prog metal world is full of bands pushing musical boundaries. How do you see Gladiolus fitting into this landscape, and what makes your approach unique?
Anson: We’re not trying to pigeon-hole ourselves into a certain vibe or production aesthetic, heck, we’re not even necessarily looking to push any boundaries. We don’t look at our music and go “This doesn’t sound like this other band.” What we are doing is genuine, and we are trying to write and record music that we would enjoy listening to. If anything, we’re pushing against the idea that modern prog absolutely must adhere to certain tonal and production aesthetics. That isn’t to say that future releases won’t adhere to this, but we’re always looking to serve our songs first. It wouldn’t be far-fetched to state that our next release could sound wildly different – it all depends on how all of us are feeling when we write the music.
To put things simply, Gladiolus is a band all about leveraging the tools and technology we have available to us. My brother has just built a custom eurorack modular synth setup. My dad has a Gibson Firebird Electric 12 string. We have a whole swathe of different microphones between us as a band. We can experiement. This is all unique technology we can access to get interesting results. If these results serve our sounds and goals, then we will use them. Maybe this will push boundaries, because you’re probably not going to hear these things in a lot of modern prog, but we’re not setting out to reinvent the wheel.
“Chrysalis” and “The Wanderer” offer listeners a sonic contrast. How do you decide which songs get released as singles, and what qualities make a song stand out as a first introduction to your audience?
Dan: It made sense for “Chrysalis” to be the first single drop for us, as it sits in a nice middle ground sonically between the heavier stuff like “Myopic” and the lighter stuff like “The Wanderer.” It’s also our most accessible/straightforward song, so we felt it’d summarise our work decently as a first taste. “The Wanderer” was our opportunity to show the more proggy/experimental side of Inertia. It has a less linear structure, more breathing space and some noodly duelling solo shenanigans that offers something a little more avant-garde for the type that might enjoy that side of our sound.
About a month before we released Inertia we put out “Disintegrator” as our last single. That one was definitely for anyone asking “hey, where’s the heavy? This is prog METAL, dude”. It’s a lot more post-metal/desert-rocky than our other singles were, so I think it does a good job of preparing the audience for the heavier side of Inertia’s track list.
You’ve now taken your first major step into the world of progressive rock and metal with Inertia. How do you see your sound evolving as you continue creating music?
Dan: It’s really hard to tell at this stage. I think we’ve shown with this release that there’s lots of different directions we’d like to explore, and the breadth of our appreciation for the music around us has only grown since these tracks were penned, so there’s plenty more corners that we haven’t even touched on yet.
Much of Inertia existed before Joe and Zak were in the picture to have a hand in building the bones of it, so I think I’m most excited about the opportunity to write something fresh with them and seeing what comes out of it. It’s really anyone’s guess as to where the next chapter will take us.
Progressive music is often associated with longer compositions and complex arrangements. How do you balance keeping the listener engaged while also staying true to the experimental nature of prog?
Dan: It’s definitely another case of “trying not to think too much about it” for me. I think if you try to take the analysis out of it and just write for yourself, you’ll know in your heart if you’ve overdone it. Songs like “Flicker” and “Inertia” weren’t built with the intention of them being 10 minutes long, they just kinda… ended up that way.
I’d put a section together and then stumble into a cool continuation that demanded the piece continue, or I’d write a bunch of riffs/sections and then see if I could mash them together in an order that made sense dynamically and emotionally. Often, parts would be deleted as quickly as they came, but it was always easy to tell when it was right.
By discarding any pre-conceived notions of what a song is expected to be, and recording/arranging stuff based on impulse, you naturally lead yourself to playing with the structure a bit, or pursuing avenues you wouldn’t necessarily have considered if you just wrote a verse to go with the chorus you just tracked. Writing music is fun, and the best stuff always comes out when you allow yourself to be creative for the sake of being creative.
Brisbane and the Gold Coast have produced some incredible bands over the years. How has your local music scene supported Gladiolus, and how do you contribute back to the scene?
Dan: Man, I love the Brissy music scene. We’ve got SO many cool bands surrounding us – Caligula’s Horse, Osaka Punch, Opus of a Machine, Kodiak Empire, The Stranger, Torizon… there’s heaps of awesome stuff that I can’t believe more people aren’t even clued in on yet. This city hides some awesome secrets.
We were lucky enough to open up for Osaka Punch at the Brightside recently, which was a real honour. We love their music to death, so to be able to share that night with them was really special. Kodiak Empire also had us out with them for the launch of their EP The Great Acceleration last year, which was really awesome of them. We’re super grateful for the opportunities we’ve had up until this point, and we’ll always rally around for a show – especially if we know there’s a local prog band on the bill!
Through the formation of Gladiolus and throughout Inertia’s recording, we’ve met a lot of people who play locally in other bands. There’s real mateship in the Brisbane/Gold Coast prog community. It’s always hugs all around at gigs, and everyone’s ready to help at the drop of a hat. We’ll lend gear to each other, and sometimes we’ll lean on each other for an external opinion on in-progress demos or mixes. Sometimes I’ll have mates come over and show me stuff that they’re writing, and they’ll be stuck trying to figure out where to take it, so we’ll work through it together to see where it goes. Some of this record wouldn’t be what it is without the support of the friends we have around us.
I think my favourite up-and-coming act in Brisbane at the moment is Rouse. They’ve only played a couple of shows locally and there’s not much on Spotify, but holy fuck, they’re just insanely good. A really cool mix of progressive metal, post-metal, sludge and shoegaze. Rhys, James and Dylan all sing live together too, which isn’t something I feel like you see a heap in our community. An absolute pleasure to see them play – I’m captivated every time.
Speaking of, Rhys, I’m on your case. Put out that bloody EP and play a show with us already!
Your music has been described as taking listeners on a journey. Do you see your live performances as extensions of that journey, and how do you bring the immersive experience of your music to the stage?
Dan: Our music has a lot of vocal layering and reverb tails, so it does a lot of the heavy lifting for us in terms of conveying the feelings we’re looking to pull out of our audience. We’re relatively new to playing live, but we’ve found that the most important part is not to forget where you were when you were writing the music. If you can re-connect with the thoughts and feelings tied to the art as you’re playing it, it becomes a lot easier to make it cohesive in the moment and connect with the audience.
People don’t mind so much about whether or not you’re doing spin kicks if you’re prepared to be vulnerable and explore the feelings with the audience. Spin kicks are pretty rad, though. We should do more spin kicks.
As an up-and-coming prog band, what are some goals you’ve set for yourselves in the near future, both in terms of music and reaching new audiences?
Dan: Goals? That’s easy. Play some shows outside of Brissy, and release some more music before we’re all in walking frames.
For real though, I think I speak for all of us when I say we’re chomping at the bit to share this music with the world. Being from Australia means it’s hard to make the leap out into touring beyond our own backyard (we’re a long way off that), but we’d love to mosey on down to the other states and play some shows for new audiences!
While Inertia is new to you guys, it’s been a long-term labour of love for us. It’s been AGES since we wrote new music, so once we’ve had a second to exhale, we’ll be keen to get back into writing mode. I don’t think we’ll commit to anything specific just yet for the next release – it’d be nice to just write for fun for a little bit, then see what we end up with and put something together from that. Maybe it’ll be a single, maybe it’ll be an EP… I don’t think it’ll be another 73-minute concept album, though! But then again…
Finally, for those who may be discovering Gladiolus for the first time, what’s the one thing you want them to know about the band and your music?
Dan: We’ve poured everything we’ve got into this record, and we’re so stoked to be able to share it with you. Art is inherently rooted in the understanding of our own personal experiences… The human condition is so unique, and while we experience it on our own, we’re simultaneously all in this together.
We hope that Inertia resonates with you.
Inertia is out now and is available on Bandcamp. Follow Gladiolus on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.
