Hailing from Brazil, A DEAD POEM was formed in 2023 by Marlon Combat, with the aim of rescuing the essence and atmosphere of doom / black metal as practiced by Katatonia, October Tide, Finland's Rapture, and especially Paradise Lost and Rotting Christ during the early '90s. Starting the compositions for the first record, he invited the experienced multi-instrumentalist Carlos Misanthropic to take over the vocals and other instruments, thus forming a duo with the same goals and with extreme musical harmony.
 
Aptly titled Abstract Existence, A DEAD POEM's debut album is a tour de force of vintage vibes - the velvety, incense-choked essence of 1993, when gothic doom, black metal, and melodeath briefly comingled and crossed DNA. One could point to such classics as Paradise Lost's Gothic, Katatonia's Dance of December Souls, or indeed Rotting Christ's later dark-horse A Dead Poem as the firm aesthetic foundation on which the duo build their darkly emotive anthems, but A DEAD POEM the band keenly understand subtlety and restraint, allowing each of these seven hypnotic songs to slowly work their spell and drown the listener in a sorrow so deep, you can practically feel the era-authentic black turtleneck closing around you. No more but definitely no less, Abstract Existence is an exercise in purity, of offering tribute to and tastefully embellishing an exclusive canon: mighty times when the subgenre was experiencing the paths to choose, establishing its own dos and don'ts. ​Sealing that authenticity is the exquisitely mossy 'n' ​dingey production, wringing every last dour note for all its worth.