This is their most ambitious chapter yet.
Brisbane metalcore titans Aeon Nexus are back, and they’re bringing a blood-soaked cinematic vision with them.
The quartet has just unleashed their deliciously macabre new EP, Final Girl, a three-track juggernaut that marks a thrilling new chapter for the band.
This release not only introduces the formidable talents of new members Jordan Gray and Jesse Nikolic but also showcases the band’s evolution into a more collaborative and complex force.
Following a year of high-profile supports and festival slots, the band is channelling their ferocious energy into a concept that is both a brutal homage to 80s slasher flicks and a sharp feminist critique.
With the title track’s theatrical blend of soaring synths, polyrhythmic grooves, and crushing breakdowns, Aeon Nexus is poised to cement their reputation as one of Australia’s most exciting heavy acts.
We sat down with the band to discuss their chillingnew single, the powerful message behind the mayhem, and their plans for world domination.
HAPPY: What are you all up to today?
AEON NEXUS: It’s Friday and release day! So apart from telling anyone who’ll listen about our new music release, we are celebrating in our own individual ways.
Myself (Sam) and Jesse love to go bouldering so we’re probably in the climbing gym, whereas Trav is shredding away in his home studio and Jordan is most likely doing the same, while hanging out with his cat Kevin.
HAPPY: Tell us a little about where Aeon Nexus is based and what you love about the Brisbane music scene.
AEON NEXUS: So yes, all four members of Aeon Nexus are based in Brisbane, and honestly, I would say that most of the success we’ve seen so far can be attributed to our local scene here and just how incredibly supportive it is.
The Brisbane metal scene might still be considered more of a niche contingent, purely in terms of numbers compared to other genre fanbases here, but Brisbane metalheads show up for local bands in ways that you rarely see for other more mainstream genres.
There’s a wonderful rapport we’ve developed with the vast majority of musicians in other metal bands in the scene – musos are mutually supportive and passionate.
But I’ll say, what is truly magical is the fans who may not be musicians themselves, but show up for their favourite local bands time and time again purely for the love of the music.
We have fans who have bought literally every piece of merch and music we have ever made, and who have attended almost all of our gigs, even travelling a considerable distance to do so on some occasions.
There really is a beautiful sense of community in this scene, which makes all the grind worth it!
HAPPY: Brisbane has a long history of heavy and experimental music. How much has that scene shaped Aeon Nexus, and where do you feel the band fits within it?
AEON NEXUS: That’s an interesting question.
For me, the overarching motivation behind the Aeon Nexus project was to channel my growing prog and metalcore influences to create a sound in which I could find my new voice, after spending many years fronting symphonic metal bands in Brisbane.
However, my observations about the local scene definitely did factor into that as well.
When I first began fronting local metal bands over a decade ago now, the Brisbane metal contingent’s taste leaned heavily towards thrash, death metal, the more extreme side of things.
Fast forward to 2023 when I began forming Aeon, metalcore was much more integrated into the broader palette of Brisbane metal tastes, so to speak, yet somehow, even after all this development, there was still a dearth of women and non-binary people in heavier local bands here.
I guess I saw an opportunity for a sound like Aeon’s – progressive, melodic, both clean and extreme female vocals, with a strong metalcore foundation – to stand out as something new and unique in the Brisbane metal landscape.
So far, I think we’ve built that reputation, and we still get comments about how our style is really versatile and can see us fit onto a variety of different lineups.
We’ve been the heaviest band by far on a more hard rock-centric lineup, or the nice melodic palette cleanser on a brutal extreme metal bill, and even something of a wildcard on a few local metal festivals that were dominated by more traditionally “Brisbane metal” thrash and death metal bands.
HAPPY: Aeon Nexus pulls from progressive metal, metalcore, electronic music and much more atmospheric territory. Was that genre-blurring approach there from the beginning, or has it developed over time?
AEON NEXUS: The genre-blurring approach was definitely there from the beginning!
That was always a crucial point of difference and musical objective that was important to me for this band, and luckily I found members who share that vision.
Our bassist Trav is the oldest original member of the band apart from myself – he was the first person I jammed with when I was scouting for people who were interested in the project.
His contributions in regards to our genre-blurring style cannot be overstated, and he was always very much on board with taking that approach so we could come up with something truly original.
He brought his phenomenal technical skill and extreme metal influences, as well as his jazz degree training, to the table and has really pushed me as a composer and songwriter (in the best way!).
This collaboration formed the bedrock of what Aeon’s sound has become, and now with Jordan and Jesse’s contributions, that’s continued to develop further.
HAPPY: Who were some of the artists who initially brought you together musically, and who are you listening to at the moment?
AEON NEXUS: Spiritbox was the band that started it all for me, as they inspired me to form a more metalcore-leaning band than any I’d fronted before.
However, I was also taking strong influence from bands like TesseracT, Architects, Northlane, ERRA and Sleep Token.
Trav and I bonded over the more extreme, technical bands that mutually influenced us – bands like Meshuggah, Archspire and Opeth – whereas Jordan and I share a love of the more melodic metalcore bands like Architects and Northlane.
Jesse brings his love of mathcore bands like Every Time I Die, The Dillinger Escape Plan and Botch to our band, which really works for what we’re trying to achieve and has added a really interesting flavour to our sound.
At the moment, we’re loving Primus, Tre Watson, 200 Stab Wounds, Entheos, and Archspire (Trav); Sleep Token, Holding Absence, Thrown and Banks Arcade (Jordan); F3rgatr0n, Johnny Booth, Uncultivates and Big Ass Truck (Jesse); and Heriot, Pupil Slicer, Psycroptic and Architects (Sam).
HAPPY: Tell us about ‘Final Girl’. Where did the song begin, and what made it feel like the right track to introduce this new chapter of the band?
AEON NEXUS: “Final Girl” began with the main riff and rapid arpeggio synth pattern you hear in the intro of the track – Trav uploaded these as an initial song idea, and it went from there.
It was such a catchy yet frenetic hook that I knew pretty much instantly, this will turn into a banger.
I fleshed it out and crafted a full song structure using the hook, extrapolating on those ideas.
Then the four of us worked together on each section of the song to put our own stamp on it and really build the journey within the track.
Jesse and Jordan joined the band officially around June last year, and then the latter half of 2025 was chock-a-block full of gigs for us.
We still made ample time for writing in the midst of that busy schedule, and we were working on several new tracks, but “Final Girl” just came together the most easily.
The track just got to a point where we were realised, this is the best it can be, and it really represents us as a unit.
That’s why it was the obvious choice for the first release from this new chapter of the band.
HAPPY: The song and video take on the “final girl” trope and the fetishisation of female pain in horror and true crime. What made you want to explore that idea through Aeon Nexus?
AEON NEXUS: I’ve said many times before that what always attracted me to metal was its intensity, and particularly as a songwriter and performer of metal music, metal provides a space in which I feel most comfortable to express my most challenging, conflicting emotions.
The intensity of metal is also the perfect setting through which to advocate for causes and convey messages that may be confronting but are vitally important nonetheless.
Aeon Nexus is the heaviest band I have ever fronted, and it has been a vessel for my own personal empowerment journey as an artist, but also as a woman in the world trying to find her voice.
I’ve always written songs dealing with darker themes, as I’ve always had a morbid curiosity about the darker side of the human condition.
But over the past couple of years, as the world has become increasingly more complicated, divisive and downright distressing, I developed a deep and admittedly obsessive interest in true crime.
This even inspired a career change – I’m now studying forensics and criminology at university.
Through all my research so far, I realised that violent crime never happens in a vacuum.
I’m sure we’re all familiar with the nature vs nurture aspect of determinism as it applies to criminology, but going deeper than that, I considered the broader societal context and the role social conditioning has to play in how we understand crime.
Women are disproportionately the victims of violent crime, generally speaking, yet also statistically we are much more interested in consuming true crime media, narratives and research than men are.
Why is this? Well, going back to the world today, everything seems to be reaching a boiling point, a critical mass of tension fuelled by suppressed and sometimes misplaced rage.
Women are angry, and rightly so, and we need healthy channels through which to express rage and share our perspectives.
Aeon Nexus is a feminist band, and I choose to channel my own rage in a healthy way by conveying these important messages through the intensity of metal music.
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HAPPY: The video leans heavily into the language of ’80s slasher films while turning some of those conventions on their head. How closely did the visual concept develop alongside the song itself?
AEON NEXUS: I always had a very specific vision for “Final Girl” from a thematic perspective.
As we were developing the music of the song, I was writing the lyrics to clearly articulate the narrative of the final girl as I wanted to represent her in this take on the trope.
Basically, the lyrics tell the story from start to finish, and I then had a linear storyline ready to be used as the framework for the visual concept: serial killer hunts a naive group of people, he kills everyone in gruesome ways, except in our version, the “final girl” comes out on top as the sole survivor.
Essentially, a mini horror film with something of a feminist revenge fantasy.
We knew that to pull this off, we’d need to be able to find a setting within our budget that offered several different set options, a very clinical-looking “kill room”, ample opportunity to use LOTS of fake blood and gore, and a general creepy vibe.
We were super fortunate that we were able to hire the horror maze space at Evilcorp to film the video, because it offered all of that and more, being purpose-built as a horror attraction.
Without that space, we might not have been able to bring the full vision to life.
Working again with Seb (Seabass Media), our videographer, also ensured we captured the chaotic footage and creepy effects we needed for the story to be effective.
There’s some humour in the video too that was kind of a spontaneous decision on filming day, and I do think it is important to inject a bit of levity into art when you’re dealing with confronting topics.
It all worked out really, really well for us.
HAPPY: Final Girl also marks the arrival of Jordan Gray and Jesse Nikolic. How has bringing new members into the band changed the way Aeon Nexus writes and performs?
AEON NEXUS: For the bulk of the songwriting in Aeon previously, the approach tended to be myself or Trav contributing core song ideas, building on those and then guitars and drums added later by our former members.
Now with Jordan and Jesse, they’ve started to offer their own song ideas – catalogues of riffs – to serve as inspiration building blocks.
It’s becoming a lot more of a fully collaborative writing process between the four of us.
In terms of performing, we’re really good friends as well as bandmates, and I find we have a really strong natural chemistry on stage.
We just all love playing shows, and we’re all really supportive of each other on and off stage.
HAPPY: The upcoming EP is only three tracks long. Did that make you approach it differently to a larger body of work, and what connects those three songs?
AEON NEXUS: Yes, so the three tracks on this EP are part of a future full-length concept(ish) album we are working on – in fact, it will be our debut full-length album.
I say concept-ish album because while it doesn’t necessarily follow one overarching storyline, all the tracks on that album are nonetheless representing chapters of a broader story I want to tell.
‘Final Girl’, ‘Aurora’ and ‘Hydra’ are three chapters in this often morbid, sometimes sordid, but always important story I want to address with our art, about true crime, fetishisation of violence, gendered violence, harmful gender stereotypes and the dangers of the patriarchy, and the horror that underpins all of that.
HAPPY: What does the band’s current studio setup look like? Are there particular guitars, amps, pedals, plugins, synths or pieces of gear that have become central to the Aeon Nexus sound?
AEON NEXUS: Guitar tone and texture is very important for our music, and Jordan uses a Quad Cortex to capture the variety of tones we need on record and for live performances.
We have an abundance of synth layers in our music, most of which come from my Korg Opsix digital synth.
Trav playing a 7-string fretless bass is also a pretty significant aspect of our sound, and something fans comment on at every gig!
Studio-wise, for all the tracks on this EP, we tracked all instruments and vocals ourselves in Trav’s home studio, except for live drums, which were recorded at Pulpitation Studios in Brisbane.
HAPPY: Progressive metal can get incredibly precise, but ‘Final Girl’ still feels chaotic and physical. How much of the recording process is about chasing technical perfection versus capturing the energy of the performance?
AEON NEXUS: I won’t lie, for most of us, recording these tracks required multiple takes for single phrases, over and over again.
Because our music has so much going on, and so many layers, technical precision is key to ensure that basically, that chaos is a controlled chaos, and not just a mess of incoherent noise.
Our recording timeframe actually took a fair bit longer than we had originally anticipated, because for one thing, we wanted to make sure we got everything just right, but also, we acknowledge that the energy and integrity of performance is important too.
So in some recording sessions, we pushed ourselves to get that good take, but in other instances, we simply scheduled extra recording sessions so people could go home, rest up and regain that energy, and come back feeling refreshed.
I’ll also give a shoutout to Chris Themelco from Monolith Studios Melbourne, who mixed and mastered the tracks for us.
His role in the production process helped us to pull that myriad of stems together and craft the specific studio sound we wanted.
He’s an absolute wizard in that regard!
HAPPY: Lastly, what makes you happy?
AEON NEXUS: Playing music with good people to good people.
Hearing that we’ve inspired other women and girls in particular to take up the mantle of fronting metal bands.
Cracking terrible jokes at each other during rehearsal.
Our cats (three of us are cat parents).
And having a community, and family, whatever that looks like to you.
