Liam Brewer and Dav Byrne officially met over the internet. Despite hailing from the same sleepy country town, their paths had never crossed until, in 2002, Liam invited Dav to sing in his new stoner rock project, Zuul.
Following an abrupt jam, it was quickly agreed between these two blokes that they had much bigger and heavier fish to fry.
After jamming on the Zuul songs as a two-piece in various formats, it was decided to take a far slower and darker direction than originally thought. Dav, a decade-long guitar-tinkerer, started forging deep, ear-bending chords and Liam honed his sharp drum chops down to an exercise in precise sloth. The two collaborated on the writing structure, and Agonhymn was born.
Refining their tight sound further, a recording was made at Melbourne's SAE. To the guys' dismay, when they returned to the studio to mix down, they found the audio files had somehow disappeared.
That is, they had been erased.
From that day forward it was agreed that Agonhymn was to stay with the bassless format, start playing gigs as a duo, and only record again once Dav had found time and funds to build his studio.
Now with Iridium Audio up and running, they’ve taken the bull by the horns and hand-hewn a recording of brutal beauty.
Doom Jazz.
The record has been entirely fashioned by the guys themselves, who both happen to be talented live and studio engineers on the Melbourne circuit.
In mid-December 2007, Liam was on the road as the FOH engineer for Geelong's The Red Shore when, 15km north of Coffs Harbour, their van was in a serious accident. Sadly, singer Damo Morris and roadie/general good bloke Andy Milner passed away. As a result of the accident, Liam copped a badly broken arm and had to take several months off playing.
Now that his arm is well on the mend, the boys are back playing live, so keep an ear to the ground for upcoming shows. Something (very) cool is expected to be announced shortly.
Inventive, evocative and crushing, Agonhymn will appeal to fans of weighty, dramatic outfits such as Yob, Neurosis and Pelican..