Austere: Upcoming Album ‘The Stillness of Dissolution’ Concludes Three-Year Release Sequence

Amid a renewed wave of interest in atmospheric and genre-specialized music, ‘The Stillness of Dissolution’ is scheduled for release on June 6, 2025, via Prophecy Productions. Issued by the Australian duo Austere, the album extends the label’s focus on dark metal—a category distinct from its more extreme counterparts in tempo and technique, but no less exacting in tone. The release has been preceded by a series of advance singles and announced formats, including limited vinyl pressings and digital distribution, positioning the record for both niche and international availability.

Austere, formed in Wollongong in 2005, operates within a minimal structure: two members, a consistent aesthetic, and a narrowed field of production. Following a prolonged silence, the band resumed activity with a trilogy of full-length releases, of which ‘The Stillness of Dissolution’ is the third. Rather than expanding into broader touring cycles or promotional collaborations, they have maintained a release-focused model, issuing work through Prophecy Productions in formats that appeal directly to genre-specific audiences.

The announcement of ‘The Stillness of Dissolution’ has been accompanied by select tour dates and a series of pre-release singles, each contributing to the album’s emerging public profile. With its structured rollout and continuity of concept, the album has garnered coverage from genre-specific publications and maintains relevance through its alignment with current production and distribution models.

Austere Origins and Project Structure

Formed in 2005 in the coastal city of Wollongong, New South Wales, Austere is composed of Mitchell Keepin and Tim Yatras, who record under the names Desolate and Sorrow, respectively. The duo emerged during a period when Australia’s underground metal scene was experiencing a diversification of styles, with acts increasingly exploring introspective and slow-tempo variants of black and dark metal. From the outset, Austere aligned themselves with this direction, developing a sparse but emotionally charged sound defined by elongated compositions, dissonant textures, and restrained melodic patterns.

Their early discography, issued through niche labels with limited distribution, attracted international attention within genre-specific circles but was followed by an extended period of inactivity. This absence, which lasted over a decade, did not lead to formal disbandment but instead left their catalogue in suspension—widely circulated among collectors and listeners in digital spaces yet without indication of further output. Their reactivation in 2021 came without advance notice, initiated not through press campaigns or festival appearances but through direct studio work and communications via Bandcamp and official label channels.

Since reuniting, Austere has resumed work with a consistency that stands in contrast to their earlier sporadic visibility. The decision to release three albums across three consecutive years—beginning with ‘Corrosion of Hearts’ in 2023, followed by ‘Beneath the Threshold’ in 2024, and culminating in the upcoming ‘The Stillness of Dissolution’—suggests a structured approach to production rather than a reactive one. Their alignment with Prophecy Productions, a German label known for cultivating long-form, genre-contained artists, has provided a stable outlet for this body of work. This relationship has enabled Austere to maintain autonomy over their process while reaching a dedicated, if circumscribed, international audience.

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Overview of the Album ‘The Stillness of Dissolution’

Austere’s fifth studio album, titled ‘The Stillness of Dissolution,’ is being issued in multiple physical and digital formats, including a CD Digipak edition, a standard black vinyl LP, and a limited-edition orange and black marbled vinyl pressing, capped at 300 copies. These offerings reflect the band’s continued adherence to format diversity—an approach common in the independent and collector-oriented sectors of extreme music distribution—while also aligning with the label’s long-established preference for high-quality physical releases.

The album consists of six tracks: ‘Dissolved Exile,’ ‘Time Awry,’ ‘Redolent Foulness,’ ‘The Downfall,’ ‘Rusted Veins,’ and ‘Storm Within My Heart’. While varying in length and tempo, the track titles themselves suggest a sustained engagement with themes of deterioration, estrangement, and internal collapse—consistent with Austere’s previous use of language and motifs across prior releases. The sequencing does not follow a narrative arc in the traditional sense but contributes to a cumulative effect in tone, which has been characteristic of the duo’s full-length works since their formation. Prophecy Productions has not issued any statement regarding the conceptual framing of the record, and the band has continued its established practice of limited public commentary, leaving interpretation largely to critical and listener response.

Production was undertaken in Wollongong, with the recording sessions split between the band’s home environment and Équinoxe Studios. This setting, while modest by industry standards, is typical for self-contained projects operating in dark metal and adjacent subgenres, where control over mixing and sound design is prioritized over external studio intervention.

The mastering process was handled internally by Tim Yatras, whose longstanding role in the band includes percussion, keyboards, and all post-production tasks. The cover artwork, executed by Mitchell Keepin, adheres to the subdued monochromatic design language consistent with earlier Austere releases, reinforcing the album’s visual continuity within the band’s discography and within Prophecy’s catalogue at large.

Composition and Tonal Approach

‘The Stillness of Dissolution’ adheres closely to Austere’s established sonic lexicon, drawing from depressive black metal while operating primarily within the more expansive parameters of dark metal. The album employs extended compositional structures and an intentionally static sense of progression, privileging atmosphere over contrast. Each track unfolds across durations that resist conventional song formats, favoring slowly evolving harmonic sequences and understated tempo shifts. The result is a collection of pieces that function less as individual statements and more as movements within a sustained tonal environment—one characterized by dissonance, textural layering, and emotional containment.

The record incorporates blackgaze elements selectively, with reverb-heavy guitar passages and melodic overlays that soften the harsher percussive and vocal components. However, Austere avoids the overt stylistic blending common to more accessible variants of blackgaze. Instead, their treatment of guitar work remains sparse and recursive, frequently returning to motifs without resolution. Clean vocals are used minimally and positioned low in the mix, contributing to an overall impression of distance and withdrawal. Harsh vocals, delivered by both members, are elongated and filtered, not as narrative expressions but as sonic components indistinct from the surrounding instrumentation. Percussion follows similar principles—rarely serving a dominant rhythmic role, it often appears submerged within the mix, accentuating texture rather than driving structure.

The thematic direction of ‘The Stillness of Dissolution’ centers on psychological erosion and the condition of emotional stasis. This is articulated not through explicit lyrical content—much of which remains obscured—but through the cumulative effect of sound design, song titles, and production choices. Titles such as ‘Dissolved Exile’, ‘Redolent Foulness’, and ‘Storm Within My Heart’ suggest states of decay, contamination, and internal collapse. Yet the band offers no clarification of these concepts in accompanying materials, and the absence of direct commentary aligns with Austere’s broader methodology of withholding authorial interpretation. The listener is left to apprehend the material experientially, shaped by repetition and a lack of structural relief. This refusal of catharsis—both musically and conceptually—places the album in dialogue with earlier Austere works, while also reinforcing its alignment with the broader tradition of dark metal as a genre preoccupied with stasis, disintegration, and unresolved emotional states.

Released Tracks Prior to Album Launch

The rollout of ‘The Stillness of Dissolution’ has followed a staggered release model, with three advance singles issued between March and May 2025. Each single has served a dual function: to provide listeners with an early auditory entry point into the album’s tonal direction, and to sustain public visibility in the lead-up to the full release. This strategy reflects a common practice within dark and extreme metal distribution, where singles are not necessarily intended for chart performance or rotation, but rather for contextual framing and audience retention across niche media platforms.

The first single, ‘Time Awry,’ was released in March and accompanied by a monochrome video that echoed the band’s long-standing aesthetic of visual restraint. The track introduced the record’s compositional palette with deliberate pacing, multi-layered guitars, and minimal vocal articulation. The video, disseminated through Prophecy Productions’ official channels and shared across Bandcamp and dark metal forums, reinforced Austere’s continued avoidance of narrative or performance-based visual formats. It consisted primarily of abstract imagery and static shots—consistent with the group’s approach to visual media as atmospheric supplement rather than interpretive guide.

Following this, the band released ‘Redolent Foulness’ in April, a piece that introduced more abrasive tonal elements while maintaining the album’s overall textural density. The final single, ‘Storm Within My Heart,’ appeared in May and drew attention for its closer alignment with traditional black metal characteristics—particularly in its vocal delivery and distorted guitar layering. Despite these shifts in intensity, none of the singles departed meaningfully from the broader structure or aesthetic of the album. Instead, they served to reinforce the coherence of ‘The Stillness of Dissolution’ as a complete work, with each track functioning as a self-contained fragment of a larger, uniform soundscape.

Touring and Promotion

In the lead-up to the release of ‘The Stillness of Dissolution,’ Austere undertook a limited national tour in May 2025, performing in Fortitude Valley, Newtown, and Richmond. The performances were hosted in independent venues aligned with the band’s audience profile, including Soapbox Beer, The Vanguard, and The Leadbeater. Announcements were distributed via Prophecy Productions and the band’s official channels, with no involvement from large-scale press outlets or third-party tour partners. The live sets closely reflected the studio versions of recent material, with minimal variation and no new promotional visuals introduced at the events.

Each performance was held in venues known for supporting niche and experimental acts, including The Brightside in Fortitude Valley, The Vanguard in Newtown, and The Bendigo Hotel in Richmond. These venues have previously hosted a range of atmospheric, doom, and dark metal events, making them familiar spaces for the band’s intended audience. Ticketing was handled through local distributors and venue sites, and announcements were issued primarily via Prophecy Productions and the band’s Bandcamp page, avoiding mainstream press or large-scale promotion. The tour coincided with the release of the final pre-release single, ‘Storm Within My Heart,’ which was incorporated into the live set.

Following the album’s release, Austere is scheduled to appear in Europe in December 2025 for a five-date concert series titled December Severance. Presented by Black Speech Booking, the tour will include performances in Arnhem (NL), Nuremberg (DE), Berlin (DE), Münster (DE), and Kortrijk (BE). The dates span December 3 to December 7 and include a confirmed appearance at Wintermelodei Festival in Münster. Support will be provided by the Belgian project Omega Eternum. The announcement of the tour was accompanied by a monochromatic promotional poster, continuing the band’s restrained visual style. No additional tour legs or festival appearances have been disclosed at the time of publication.

Conclusion

‘The Stillness of Dissolution’ functions not as a pivot point in Austere’s trajectory but as a deliberate extension of their ongoing methodology—an album shaped by continuity rather than rupture. Within the context of their post-hiatus catalogue, it completes a structured sequence of annual full-length releases that began with ‘Corrosion of Hearts’ and continued with ‘Beneath the Threshold.’ This approach reflects a sustained creative rhythm uncommon in their earlier history, marking a period of increased output without altering the project’s foundational principles of minimalism, self-containment, and conceptual opacity.

Released through Prophecy Productions, a label known for cultivating long-term relationships with artists operating in atmospheric and genre-specific fields, the album also reaffirms Austere’s place within the contemporary dark metal canon. It neither broadens its audience through crossover gestures nor modifies its sound to align with emergent trends. Instead, it consolidates existing motifs—slow pacing, thematic repetition, and emotional austerity—through tightly controlled production and selective dissemination. The format variations, limited tour dates, and absence of extensive media commentary are consistent with the group’s broader strategy of calibrated exposure, reinforcing the work’s position as an artefact for focused listening rather than wide distribution.

In that sense, ‘The Stillness of Dissolution’ holds significance not as a departure, but as a completion. It confirms the duo’s long-term adherence to their chosen structure while reaffirming their relevance within a scene increasingly shaped by fragmentation and stylistic convergence. Rather than reacting to that environment, Austere has produced a work that exists parallel to it—self-contained, consistent in tone, and designed to resist immediate consumption in favor of sustained attention.