Sixteen years is a long time to leave something unfinished, Poison The Well never felt like a band that needed to come back.
Their legacy was already cemented through The Opposite of December… A Season of Separation, a record that still bleeds into everything metalcore has become, but Peace In Place doesn’t arrive like a victory lap. It lands like something that needed to be said.
There’s weight in this record, not nostalgia or expectation, but something more internal, that’s been sitting unresolved for a long time.
Speaking with guitarist Ryan Primack, it’s clear this wasn’t about reclaiming a throne, if anything it was about figuring out if the band still made sense at all.
Not looking back, even if everyone else is
Poison The Well’s influence gets thrown around a lot, ask Primack, and he’s not interested in carrying that narrative.
“No, I don’t know that I can allow myself to believe that concept. Really, it seems foreign to me. There’s so many bands that we, you know, grew up on and then were peers and tour, you know, tour partners early on that it doesn’t feel like we were doing anything that a bunch of other people weren’t doing. I think so it’s hard for me to onboard that concept. It’s I don’t feel special.”
That perspective shapes how Peace In Place feels, it’s not trying to outdo the past or trying to prove anything, it just exists because it needed to.
Poison The Well ‘Thoroughbreds’ video
Picking things back up without starting over
The band never really disappeared from each other’s lives, that gap between records wasn’t silence, it was distance from creating.
“We always were part of each other’s lives. In that break that we had for making music. We all hung out and made made it a point to see each other when we could and spend time together. So I think, yeah, it took a minute to get used to making music again.”
That familiarity helped, but it didn’t erase friction.
“Sometimes one one of us talks to the other and the other person’s like, I don’t understand a word you’re saying. You can’t just combine words and expect it to be a sentence. So, you know, there’s always those frustrations. I think we’re just a little more patient with each other than we used to be.”
It’s the same chemistry, just less volatile, or at least differently volatile.
Poison The Well ‘Everything Hurts’ video
A record built out of frustration
Frontman Jeffrey Moreira has already called this their most pissed record, Primack doesn’t disagree, but the source isn’t internal:
“I mean, it definitely was not pissed at each other, just pissed environmentally, at the outside world.”
That frustration runs deeper than just anger.
“I think, I think it leads to a lot of dealing with the frustration of, you know, which a lot of times when someone says something sounds pissed, I also look at that as like and it sounds like frustrating. Inspiration to me, and that’s one of the most, that’s one of the things that I think can make you feel pissed off the most is being frustrated, being at an impasse, being at a point where no matter what step you make, it’s going to be terrible.”
That tension sits at the core of Peace In Place, It’s not clean or resolved, but it’s honest.
What “Peace In Place” actually means
For Primack, the title isn’t about calm, it’s about acceptance.
“to me, and I know this is different than it means for the other folks, but peace and place to me means, you know, regardless of of how I feel, I’m right where I’m supposed to be.”
“I’m right where it makes sense to exist.”
That idea threads through the record, understanding where you stand.
Falling back in love with the instrument
Time away changed how Primack approached writing.
“I think the that break we had, I think I sort of fell back in love with the guitar as it is, and I learned how to I think I learned a little bit more that sometimes Enough is enough.”
“I just was having a lot of fun just playing guitar. So kind of cool. You know, it’s the only thing I, you know, I have that I never frustrates me.”
There’s a looseness to that mindset with less overthinking, more instinct.
The long tail of influence
Even if Primack shrugs off the idea of influence, he can see how the landscape has shifted.
“I mean, I the fact that you hear bands from these communities and some of the places that you hear them, I don’t know. I don’t know if I equate it to a sign of, like, success, so to speak, yeah, but I equate it to when I was growing up, and, you know, the kind of music we played, like, people were just like, What the f**k is that noise?”
“And now there’s less people saying that.”
When you take a look around, that’s a real shift, more people understand the language and embrace this style in music.
Peace In Place track listing:
- Wax Mask
- Primal Bloom
- Thoroughbreds
- Everything Hurts
- Weeping Tones
- A Wake Of Vultures
- Bad Bodies
- Drifting Without End
- Melted
- Plague Them The Most
Listen here.
Poison The Well Australian tour
Poison The Well Australian tour with Haywire
- Sunday, June 7th – Magnet House, Perth
- Tuesday, June 9th – Lion Arts Factory, Adelaide
- Thursday, June 11th – 170 Russell, Melbourne
- Friday, June 12th – Metro Theatre, Sydney
- Saturday, June 13th – King St Bandroom, Newcastle
- Sunday, June 14th – Princess Theatre, Brisbane
Find out more and grab your tickets here.
Peace In Place doesn’t try to rewrite Poison The Well’s story, it doesn’t need to.
It feels like a band returning to a conversation they paused mid sentence, picking it back up without pretending nothing changed. The edges are still there, the weight is heavier, but there’s clarity in it now.
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