Label: Lupus Lounge
Release date: April 5th, 2024
The ocean does not speak. It devours. The endless tide, neither cruel nor kind, simply is. And so, I wandered into it, drawn by something nameless. It was a call that was neither voice nor whisper, but a pull from beneath the threshold of waking life. The horizon swallowed me whole, and I did not resist.
Somewhere between drowning and drifting, I found the echoes of Austere’s “Beneath the Threshold” carved into the bones of the waves. The album is no longer just an extension of their past selves. It is something newly alive, a force with its own gravity. Each note does not merely sound but breathes, each melody stretching like spectral fingers through the water, grasping at something just out of reach.
“Thrall” begins as the first pull beneath, the moment the tide grips the ankles. The faded shroud of memory wraps tight, and the cold whisper of eternity seeps into the marrow. A lament steeped in melancholic grandeur, its layered guitars weave like strands of seaweed in the depths, tethering the listener to something unseen yet undeniable. The howling vocals, distant yet visceral, feel like a cry lost in the void, their agony softened only by the song’s unearthly beauty.
The journey deepens with “The Sunset of Life”, where time erodes like a ship’s figurehead, worn smooth by the salt and years. The track is a eulogy to inevitability, a slow procession of lamenting chords that stretch across the vast, uncaring abyss. In its mournful reflection, summer fades into the brittle grasp of winter, laughter warps into screams, and the hands that once held warmth turn skeletal and cold.
Then comes “Faded Ghost”, an apparition of sorrow and solitude. The music does not demand anything, nor does it weep. It simply lingers. Like a breath lost to the wind or the last glimmer of sunlight swallowed by storm clouds, it exists in that liminal space where pain and peace become indistinguishable. The minimalist approach, its near-frigid restraint, makes every note feel like a memory slipping through trembling fingers.
But sorrow has weight and “Cold Cerecloth” is the descent. The ocean, indifferent, tightens its grip, and what was once mere reflection becomes suffocating embrace. Sepia visions, burial shrouds, and scattered ashes are the elements that compose this sound. It is the sound of erasure, of dissolving into something far greater and more endless than the self. It is haunting, not in fear, but in its quiet acceptance of the abyss.
“Unspoken Drifts” is like a body caught in a slow current, an instrumental interlude that offers no salvation, only silence. But silence, too, has its own depth. It is the held breath before submersion, the moment where surrender is no longer a choice but an inevitability.
And then, the final severance. “Of Severance” is not an ending, but the unraveling of what was never truly whole. Here, the album reaches its most unguarded moment. It is a confession wrapped in barbed wire, a love letter to loss written in salt and rust. The desperate plea to “drown the flame in my fucking heart” is less a curse and more an exhausted sigh, the last embers of resistance extinguished in the tide’s final pull. The music swells and surges, then dissipates, leaving only the listener. The listener is adrift, yet bound forever to what lies beneath.
On “Beneath the Threshold”, the Australian duo Mitchell Keepin and Tim Yatras present a refined evolution of their black metal sound, marked by greater sophistication and depth. Their signature style has matured, incorporating more infectious hooks and intricate melodies that add layers of complexity. Keepin’s abrasive guitar work, complemented by Yatras’ dynamic drumming, weaves a rich, immersive atmosphere. This evolution is further enhanced by a production that sharpens every detail, allowing the powerful riffs to cut through with precision, unclouded by excessive distortion. The album is a bold step forward, seamlessly blending aggression and melody to create a more compelling and nuanced listening experience.
However, it is not merely an album. It is an experience of being swallowed whole. It is the shipwreck and the undertow, the endless night sky reflected in the abyss below. Austere has stepped beyond mere echoes of the past and embraced the inexorable pull of something greater, something more devastatingly alive. It does not simply exist. It consumes.
