“Um… yes”, laughed Mark Kelson, guitarist and vocalist for Melbourne’s The Eternal when asked if it was a risky move opening their latest album Waiting For the Endless Dawn with the 20-minute song ‘The Wound’. “We were kind of at a point with our career where I didn’t know where to go with the band. We’d sort of changed sound a bit with each album and I think what helped set us on the path was we did a live album which we released in 2015 which encapsulated our back catalogue so we actually took a bit of time to reflect and look back instead of moving forward and I just had this feeling that I needed to make something without any restraints or any preconceptions with lengths of songs. I had this idea for a really cinematic thing that we would do a film for and it was very ambitious. We didn’t have a record label at the time and we were kind of in a bit of a lull, to be honest. We’d lost members and it was three of us starting the album so I just thought I had to do it and I did”.
In the full interview Mark discusses working the 20 minute track into the live setlist, the reaction to the latest album, the new members and how they influenced the bands sound on the album, the difficulties in conveying mood and emotion through music rather than lyrics, searching for musical identity, the change of musical direction on the 2010s Under a New Sun and the reasons behind it and more.
