When I first pulled into the driveway of a North Jackson house one evening, I wasn’t sure I was in the right place. The house itself was nondescript – just a normal house in a normal neighborhood. It wasn’t until I exited my car and heard familiar guitar tones leaking through the house’s walls before I realized I was, in fact, in the correct place.
I rang the doorbell of the house, expecting to be redirected to the garage by someone inside. Instead, I was greeted with a “Come in!” I pushed open the door, expecting a rather ordinary home, and was met with a nearly empty living room, save for music equipment, a few arcade machines, and three of the four members of Jackson blackened post-metal band Measureless Aeons, who invited me to this house (just a practice space, really, as no one lived in the house) to talk about their music and the release of their upcoming demo PASSAGES, which is out Friday, April 26th.
My introduction to Measureles Aeons was at a show featuring Birmingham band Reclaim the Empyre and fellow Jackson band Die With Nature on Friday, October 18th, 2023 at Hal & Mal’s cozy little brew pub. I was there to support my fellow Alabamians (and ended up copping a cool shirt with Alabama’s silhouette on it), and the local acts were a plus. When Measureless Aeons took the stage (or, rather, rug), I was instantly drawn in. Firstly, their production was really professional. At first, I thought Hal & Mals had stepped up their production since the last time I’d been there, because the drums were able to come through really well since each drum in the kit was individually mic’d up. Eventually, I would learn that their drummer, who has lots of experience in this realm, went through great lengths to perfect the sound engineering for their shows. I also really liked one of the songs they played, a droning, atmospheric song that has now been taken out of rotation. I was new to the Jackson music scene – this was maybe my third or fourth show – but it was unlike anything I’d ever heard, and I was hooked, despite their music falling outside of what I’d typically listen to.
After the show, I looked online to see if they had any songs posted anywhere, but found very little. After finding their Instagram, I realized they were new. Very new. In fact, that was their second show, ever. I remember thinking they sounded really good to be so new, and decided that I had to be at the next show they performed at. And I was. Any time Good Gigs JXN had a show poster with Measureless Aeons on it, I marked my calendar to be there. The only shows of theirs I haven’t been at were their very first one and any they had out of town, including one in Vicksburg, which I decided to be too far to drive, and one in Columbia that was even farther and you had to DM someone for an address, which seemed a little sketch to me.
Each time I saw them, I grew to like their music more and more. I even have a favorite song – Mournful Passage – and I was delighted each time they played it at a show. My admiration, however, did not go unnoticed.
I talk about music a lot on the Runnin’ My Mouth Podcast, both local and bigger bands, and each time I saw Measureless Aeons at a show, I would mention them on the pod. I decided to clip one of these mentions to use as a short alongside a video of them performing, because my shorts usually do better and I just had to share them with a wider audience. They ended up seeing the short an leaving a nice comment, which I thought was pretty dope.
Sometime after that in March, while I was sitting at my table after work having some dinner and watching a YouTube video, I got an email in my YouTube email address’ inbox. At the sight of the subject line and the contents of the email, my gobs were smacked, my flabbers were ghasted, and my jaw was on the floor. Apparently, because I was such a big fan of them – their biggest, apparently, having gone to more shows than even their wives and girlfriends – they decided to send me their three-song demo early. I felt like such an insider. Anthony Fantano who? Sorry, never heard of him.
So, when I started JXN UNDERGROUND, it felt natural to have them be one of my first interviews. We threw around some ideas, and landed on an in-person interview during one of their practices. Previous to this, my only experience with seeing how music of any kind was made was through Maryland djent band Periphery’s mini-documentaries on the process of creating their last four albums. Although their loadout is much more pared down than Periphery’s many custom guitars, sprawling pedalboards, and occasional orchestration, it was fascinating to see them work. That evening, it was just Ansley (guitar and vocals), Ethan (guitar) and Jack (bass and vocals), since Brian, their drummer, was out of town. I joined them in the middle of a practice session as they were working out new material.
To hear them describe it, the formation of this band felt very serendipitous, with the planets aligning all at the right time.
Measureless Aeons is still very new, having only formed one short year ago in the spring of 2023, but it feels like these guys have been at it for years with how well they work together. In a way, they have been at it for years, since this is the fourth incarnation of a project created by Ansley, Brian, and Ethan.
In 2016, Ethan and Brian were part of an indie rock project called Weekly Rent alongside another person. They needed another guitarist – Ethan was on bass at the time – and Ansley responded to their ad looking for one. At the time, he was playing in a post-punk band, but things ended up falling apart. Since then, he was yearning for something.
“I hadn’t been really active playing in bands for a long time,” he told me, “I had done electronic music in Jackson before, but hadn’t done any real rock bands. I’m at the audition, and I thought I was playing okay stuff.” Although he tried his best, the third person in their group did not feel the same way. They just didn’t gel. “I straight up told them, ‘I don’t think this is for me.’”
Although that opportunity fell through, Ansley, Brian, and Ethan ended up clicking really well. Not long after the audition, the three got together and wrote a few songs as a post-rock/shoegaze leaning outfit, but things fell through again because of scheduling conflicts. Two more tries after that lead to the same outcome. It wasn’t until after COVID when they would pick things back up for a fourth time. “Me and Ethan were listening to Alcest and Deafheaven,” Ansley said, “so we wanted a little more of a black metal-influenced vibe, but we still wanted the post-rock and shoegaze elements.”
At this point, Ethan was still playing bass and the group added another guitar player to the mix, originally to be both the vocalist and guitarist, but his seeming unwillingness to write lyrics lead to that falling through. “He was a fantastic guitarist and everything he wrote for the songs we had definitely made them better,” Ansley said of the guitarist, “but I felt we were getting away from the sound I was envisioning.” And because of that and the many changes going on in Ansley’s life, things fell apart yet again. Like a bad relationship, they went on a break, but that break morphed into a semi-permanent breakup.
Despite that, two years following this breakup, things would pick back up again. Jack and Ethan both studied at Millsaps and bonded over their shared musical interest, but lost touch until a happenstance meeting at a wedding brought them together again. “I knew he played a little bass and I played a little guitar,” Ethan said about their meeting, “so I was like ‘We should start a two-man bedroom black metal project!’ So that kinda kicked off a little something.” Eventually, the two linked back up with Brian and Ansley, one thing lead to another, and Measureless Aeons as it exists today was formed. With Jack as bassist, Ethan switched to playing 7-string guitar. As Ansley described it, it was as if nothing had changed – they just picked up right where they left off.
Each member of Measureless Aeons has a storied history of playing music, with each member more or less starting in their teens and exploring various genres. Brian and Ansley, both settled into their 40s, are what I (and probably most people) would consider true oldheads, evidenced by Ansley’s hxc shoulder tattoo and the number of past projects Brian’s been in (and current, with Brian serving as drummer in Evil Engines, another Jackson-based band), as well as the fact that Brian’s son Josh serves as the drummer for Starkville outfit Sludgelung, which I found to be absolutely precious. Even Ethan, a fresh-faced 26-year-old, plays his guitar as if it’s in his nature.
Jack, also 26, on the other hand, is the newest to all of this. “This is Jack’s first band ever,” said Ansley, “Like, first time playing bass, first time singing vocals. And seriously, I couldn’t picture anybody else in that spot.”
As Jack explained, he tried on and off for years to get into playing music, with a crude cellphone recording of some early experimental music floating in the ether of Bandcamp, but nothing ever stuck, until now. “In 2021, I was getting out of my Magic: The Gathering hobby, and I had thousands of dollars worth of cards that I was selling off. It was COVID times, so Magic: The Gathering prices went up a ton. I bought plane tickets to take a trip to Seattle with my partner Nellie, and also bought a bass guitar and an amp. Six months later, I went to that wedding and me and Ethan started jamming.”
“And the rest is history,” Ansley finished.
You’d be forgiven for thinking he’s as seasoned as his bandmates since he certainly looks the part. If you’ve never been to a Measureless Aeons show or seen him around, once you do see him, you’ll know: a self-described goth guy, he has dark hair past his waist and looks like he could deadlift your house (and probably can). His vocal style also reminds me of very early Meshuggah, from their late 80s self-titled EP, before djent was ever in the public consciousness and when unclean vocals that are now ubiquitous were just starting to get a foothold in music. Despite his appearance, he’s a really nice guy, as are all of the members of Measureless Aeons. He could crush your skull, but he could also probably crochet a blanket for your baby. (As an aside – at a recent show at the Sunflower Oven, he asked me if I had tried their baked goods. For some reason – maybe it was the sheer tiredness I felt on that Monday night – hearing the phrase “baked goods” come from a guy like him really tickled me.) Newness aside, Jack as the bassist, lyricist, and vocalist of Measureless Aeons was that final puzzle piece that was missing to make the band whole.
Watching them practice, they looked to be naturals. Heck, they even made it look easy. Now, I am a person who is somewhat suggestible – after all, I bought a sewing machine after my YouTube algorithm showed me so many sewing videos I convinced myself I could construct a garment (I can’t, but I can mend holes and sorta hem things now, which is very useful). These guys made me think that maybe I could learn how to play the guitar. Sure, the only instruments I’ve ever owned were a school-issued recorder and a godawful First Act acoustic guitar that I never got lessons for as a kid, but how hard could it be? Probably not very hard, but the last thing I need is another expensive and time-consuming hobby.
Either way, the ease at which this band works together is likely what’s contributed to them staying together for as long as they have, and their writing process definitely plays to each of their strengths. As Ansley described it, “I’m not necessarily the greatest, most technical [guitar] player, but I definitely have a vision for where I want the general sound to go. I’m definitely the pushiest in the band in that regard.” Ethan, by Ansley’s description, seems to have near-perfect pitch, being able to pick up on the key Ansley’s riffs are in and harmonize with them, something that Ansley admits he lacks.
“Ansley’s really good at coming up with the kind of earworm progressions that sound really good,” Ethan said, “We all have our strengths. I wouldn’t write lyrics because I’m not a lyric person at all, but Jack writes some really cool fuckin’ lyrics. It’s like, poetic and shit. Beyond my realm. Brian, he knows how to bring the energy. He’ll just listen to it and be like, ‘Hey, I know what this needs,’ and he’ll do it.”
Brian’s drumming is more in the punk realm, but gives Measureless Aeons a more unique sound. “He doesn’t play his blast beats like people normally play blast beats,” Jack remarked. Ansley added, “It may not be his natural default, but he’s been able to pull it off.”
Although each member has a defined role, they do trade off sometimes. “Mournful Passage was 100% Ethan writing it,” Ansley said, “he wrote pretty much all of the heavy parts. The only thing I contributed was the post-punk-ish, dancey, clean part in the middle. But that song’s mostly Ethan’s baby.” Discordant, in the same vein, was Ansley bringing a riff to the table and Ethan piecing it together.
As for their musical influences, while their basis has been in black metal, their sound can’t be pinned down to one set genre. “In the first incarnation of this group, I definitely wanted to do some stuff that had a black metal vibe,” Ansley said, “The very first song we wrote, when we first started playing it, we thought it was fast. We thought we were doing blast beats. The more we played and the faster we got and the better we got, that song ended up being one of our slowest songs. We weren’t there yet.” He added, “I feel like we’ve got a lot of diverse influences.”
“I just wanna say, we’re not a black metal band,” Ethan interjected, “We wanted to start that way, and then it was just kind of a mix of noises, especially with Brian on drums, and then it just kind of became its own thing.”
“The bands that we draw from do permeate kind of everything,” Ansley said. “If I had to market us, I would say it’s blackened post-metal. The black elements are there, but they’re subtle. I wouldn’t call us a black metal band.”
At first, I was somewhat confused at their insistence to not be labeled as black metal, aside from the fact that maybe their sound didn’t really align well enough to have the label, but then I realized black metal is often associated with fashy, church burn-y, corpse-painted bands that definitely don’t align with Measureless Aeons and their explicitly anti-fascist stance. As Ansley described it, although the technical and musical elements are there, they are subtle. “We don’t have a single song that doesn’t have a [tremolo] part. Almost every song has a blast beat at some section, and the way we play our chords and the way we play our melodies is definitely drawn from that more than any other style of metal.”
Although their musical influences are very varied, the one band that influences Measureless Aeons’ sound the most is French post-black metal band Alcest. “Alcest was 100 percent the band that, when we started the last incarnation of this, was my blueprint,” Ansley said. “The whole black metal/shoegaze mixture, they were pretty much the band that accidentally kicked that off, way before Deafheaven and all those bands came out.” If you listen to the first few tracks on the Alcest album Écailles de lune, you can definitely hear how they’ve influenced the band.
Some of their other influences include Deafheaven, Isis, Cult of Luna, Russian Circles, as well as some shoegaze, post-rock, and post-punk bands. Ansley also had a stint as a synth musician. Ethan leans more towards doom metal, technical death metal, deathcore, and we also share an appreciation for thall. Jack, a reformed metal elitist, is into melodic, progressive stuff with post-metal and post-punk sprinkled in there as well. Brian, on the other hand, has very eclectic influences. “I think why he likes our band is that it challenges him,” Ansley said, “and our music goes in different directions all over the place. He’s not necessarily the biggest metal fan, even though he likes what we’re doing and he loves our project. But I think, for him, it’s the challenge of it.” By their description, Brian’s personal playlist goes crazy with anything from punk, to the Beastie Boys, to Top 40 hits.
Their varied influences are also manifested in their gear: Ethan plays a 7-string guitar typical of progressive metal (“Because they’re cool,” he says, and I have to agree), Jack plays a 5-string bass, and Ansley once had a “ridiculous” pedalboard to rival Vicksburg shoegaze band Death Throes From a Star (which is truly formidable, if you didn’t know), but has since downsized to a Boss Katana amp with bult-in distortion effects and a tuner pedal. If any upstarts are reading this, according to Ethan and Ansley, it’s a pretty good entry-level amp that is not only affordable on the used market, but sounds decent as well.
Ansley mentioned a couple of times throughout the interview about his synth past, but when asked whether those sounds would make their way into Measureless Aeons in the future, he was unsure. “There’s two ways we could approach it: find another member who could do it, which I’m not 100 percent against, but we have a really good personal and musical chemistry. Adding another person means we’ve got to throw somebody else’s schedule into the loop, make sure their personality fits.”
“Being in a band is a whole lot like being in a relationship,” Ethan added, “If you get one bad apple that just kills the vibe, then the band is not fun to play in anymore. If you have a good group of people, you kind of run with it.” To them, it would take a truly special person to fill that role, but they’re not looking for that right now.
“The other way I can do it,” Ansley said of the second method, “is that we can get the computers and pre-program everything and trigger it, but then we have to play with clicks in-ears and make sure that we’re dead on time.”
“The third way,” Ethan said, “Is that you have a synth on stage and you just drop your guitar.” Which might be cool, they agreed, but something of a headache. They aren’t against it, but as they went on to explain, it’s a lot of effort. And although it’s for now off the table for Measureless Aeons, Ansley teased that there (very tentatively) may be a side project with just him and Jack that involves synths. So, keep an eye out for that.
As for the demo PASSAGES, the material had been around for a while. “Every one of those songs on the demo, we had written by the first show,” Ansley explained. “Since then, we’ve only written two songs that are finished. And then, we’ve got two or three other ideas that we’ve played around with.”
“We don’t want to call it an EP because we can hear things we’re not happy with,” Ansley continued. “It doesn’t really matter what we call it – demo, EP, whatever.”
“It was more of a live recording,” Ethan added.
The demo was recorded by Brandon Goehner, local audio engineer and creator of Local & Live Sessions, a series of live recordings of a variety of independent artists in the area. As Ethan described it, the recordings were mostly one-take, raw live sessions all done in one day, with a few extra overdubs. “For what we got and the amount of time we did it, I am really pleased with it,” Ansley said, “but I would have loved to have taken more time with where we knew that we nailed every single part.”
This demo serves as a little taste of what’s to come. “Those were the first songs we wrote,” Ethan said of the three tracks on the demo, “and I would love to get a proper EP recorded later this year. When we record that, they’re probably gonna be all new songs.” At least one of those new songs has been debuted at two of Measureless Aeons’ previous shows.
“[Our] newest song, I feel like, was a big jump for us and an evolution in the way we wrote. It’s honestly the first time we’ve done trade-off vocals and call and response and back and forth between the cleans and the heavy parts,” Ansley said. “I feel like there’s a lot of surprises in that song, so that song, to me, definitely feels like the next step in where we’re going.”
“It’s 100 percent a post-metal song, too,” Jack added, “because that’s always what we’re aiming for, that post-metal sound. The first few songs we recorded don’t 100 percent have that post-metal vibe. It was just whatever kind of riffs we were coming up with that we thought sounded good at the time. I think we’re gaining the ability to write the things we’re aiming for as opposed to just throwing stuff out there and seeing what sticks.”
As the band grows, they feel that some of their older material, while good, may not represent their sound as well anymore and will likely get sunsetted from future performances, partly because of that evolving sound and partly because short sets at gigs require bands to put their best feet forward. As it happens, the song that initially drew me to them, the droning, atmospheric track titled Emeralds, was originally written as a filler song to fill set time. “We cut our teeth on it and it was good at the time, “Ansley said of their earlier material, “we’re just ready for it to fall off the set and never, ever play it again.” It’s something I can certainly identify with – some of my writing from college, while good at the time and well-liked by my peers, is genuinely awful, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t learn from it. “Brian, if we could, would play every single one of our songs,” Ansley continued, “He loves all of our songs.”
And if you’re wondering when you’ll get to see Measureless Aeons perform again, well, I have some good news and bad news: the good news is that there is new material on the way, but the bad news is that future performances will likely be sparse. “We’re kind of in a songwriting mode,” Ethan said, “We’re probably not going to play a show for a good bit because Brian’s busy, so our focus right now is to write more music.”
Aside from scheduling concerns, and the fact that they’ve played quite frequently in Jackson in the past few months, the band wants to make sure that at their next show, they’ll have fresh material. “When we do our next Jackson show, we want to have at least one more new [song],” Ansley said, “and if we can have two, that’ll be even better.” The band also wants to branch out into different parts of the region. “We really want to tackle Starkville, Hattiesburg, and Memphis,” Ansley continued, “And I also wanna make New Orleans happen at some point. I’m originally from New Orleans and I really want to play in New Orleans.” So, if you’re booking shows in those areas later in the year, I happen to know of a really good post-metal band with some good music that puts on a great show.
The more I learn about the local music scene here in Jackson, the more I feel like I’ve arrived at just the right time. Not only are there many kids – high school and college aged kids – coming to shows, fostering a love and appreciation for the heavy music scene here, and starting their own bands, there seem to be a great deal of oldheads starting or continuing projects as well. Do we still have to travel a prolonged distance to see bigger bands? Yes, unfortunately. “It’s crazy, because I usually have to travel out of town for music,” Ethan remarked, “You know, you go to New Orleans, you go to Memphis, I go to Houston a lot to see shows. Big bands don’t come to Jackson. This is the first time there’s actually a scene going on where I’m excited to see local bands. I don’t feel the need to go out of town to see big bands because I’m seeing a bunch of cool stuff here in Jackson and Vicksburg.”
I have to say, my feelings definitely align with Ethan’s. I always found it so frustrating that every tour for every band I wanted to see skipped the state entirely, but now I feel sated. I’m stoked to go to local shows, vibe to music, and buy the shirt. Yes, I do still go out of town – I’ll be seeing ERRA in Birmingham and The Aminty Affliction and Sleeping With Sirens in New Orleans this year. In the past, I’ve been to Memphis twice now, and even Little Rock, which is a dreadful drive. But there’s something truly special about being able to go around the block to see bands that are just as talented and just as passionate as those big bands and not have to pay $50+ to have my view blocked by a phalanx of 6 foot tall men at the barrier. After all, I’d hazard a guess that the majority of bands in Sumerian or UNFD or Rise or any number of big-name labels started out as local bands playing in churches or bars or skate parks. I feel like one day I’ll be able to say I saw a band before they got big. Will I be able to say that about Measureless Aeons? Maybe. Only time will tell.
JXN UNDERGROUND 