Let’s rediscover Austere.
Created in Australia in 2005, the band released two albums, two splits and an EP before stopping in 2010. In 2021, Desolate (guitar/bass/keyboards/vocals, Temple Nightside, Unfelled, ex-Funeral Mourning…) and Sorrow (drums/keyboards/vocals, Autumn’s Dawn, Germ, ex-Lord…) relaunch the project, accompanied live by Paolo Bruno (bass, Thy Light) and Eklatanz (guitar, Heretoir, ex-Agrypnie), to announce the release of Corrosion of Hearts, their third album, on Lupus Lounge.
Sullen, the first track, slowly starts with a soft melancholic melody to finally envelop us in this suffocating saturation haze where leads and growls cohabit. Ghostly howls and clean vocals also appear from time to time in this continuous stream of haunting darkness, letting our minds drift with the haunting dissonant harmonics that guide us to A Ravenous Oblivion. The track is much darker and more raw than the previous one, letting different voices mix on a chaotic instrumental, even offering visceral and heartbreaking tones to accentuate this feeling of permanent and growing oppression, making each appearance an additional pain before The Poisoned Core offers us a short moment of respite with its light soaring introduction, which will eventually welcome screams again. Soothing sweetness and abrasive darkness mingle in a macabre dance surrounded by the terrifying screams giving a touch of life to this dark and devastated landscape which will only end to let Pale awake. The last composition is also very haunting, incorporating a fascinating dissonance to its heavy basis, still letting vocals blossom here and there, finally letting the ocean of darkness gradually ignite, then die in silence.
While we despaired of crossing its path again, Austere broke silence to paint us a new ocean of haunting yet sublime darkness, named Corrosion of Hearts, fourteen years after its last work. A secret beauty just waiting to be discovered.
90/100