Austere - To Lay Like Old Ashes - guest review
Austere - To Lay Like Old Ashes - guest review
Band
Austere Album
To Lay Like Old Ashes Style
Depressive black metal Release date
February 27, 2009 Tracklist
01. Down02. To Fade With The Dusk
03. This Dreadful Emptiness
04. To Lay Like Old Ashes
05. Just For A Moment...
06. Coma II
Guest review by
Timmeh May 05, 2011
The piercing shrieks, agonizing cries and tormented screams of the vocalist make it hard to hold back tears, as the keyboards and guitars overcome and consume your soul with powerful but graceful melodies that succeed in providing an extremely immersive backdrop. The drumming is superb, it feels simple but complex at the same time, hammering into your veins it keeps the emotion flowing in full force. Clean vocals are also present here and in full effect, exploding with beauty and bursting with raw passion.
The highlight of the album is definitely "This Dreadful Emptiness" engrossing, enriching, enlightening, depressing yet uplifting, this is an absolute masterpiece. All the other tracks have there own offerings that will make you want to come back for more but this is excluding the last track, "Coma II", a 20 minute snorefest boasting only a guitar and some distant sound effects on the keyboard. Now being repetitive in black metal is generally acceptable, but when it's for over 20 minutes that's just plain ridiculous, especially when it contains only one riff (yeah... that's right, I just said one riff). I'm sure this track was meant purely for aesthetics much like the bonus track found on the limited edition of Agalloch's Ashes Against The Grain for example, though it's just not necessary. It's a disappointing conclusion to a fantastic album that would have been much better off without it and like the name suggests you will probably fall into a coma attempting to listen to its entire duration. Since you won't find yourself listening to this "song" the album clocks in short at about 34 minutes (excluding "Coma II") and hence misses out on reaching its true potential.
Even with this downside, To Lay Like Old Ashes is still an amazing album, an incredible album, simply because of the unprecedented levels of emotion and atmosphere it not only contains, but creates. It is of great shame that Austere is no longer active as they're quite cable of some breathtaking and masterful music. So, if your a fan of depressive black metal, To Lay Like Old Ashes is definitely worthy of your attention and should not be missed.
Rating breakdown
| Performance: | 10 |
| Songwriting: | 9 |
| Originality: | 8 |
| Production: | 8 |
Written by Timmeh | May 05, 2011
Guest review disclaimer:
This is a guest review, which means it does not necessarily represent the point of view of the MS Staff.
This is a guest review, which means it does not necessarily represent the point of view of the MS Staff.
Comments
Comments:
12
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123 users
| Insineratehymn
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 Posts: 21306 |
Posts: 21306
Wow. "Coma II" is probably my favorite song on the album, it's weird to see comments regarding how much of a bad song it is.  The song title is definitely reflective of the song's purpose; you're supposed to feel like you're in a coma. You only hear one repeated sound, a droning car engine or the beeping of your heart monitor... Why 20 minutes? Because 4 minutes isn't enough time to feel the true weight of that kind of emptiness.
---- "Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something."
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 Posts: 344 |
Posts: 344 Written by Troy Killjoy on 05.05.2011 at 03:44 Interesting opinion, though I think it really needs somthing extra and in the context of the tracks before it, it just does not fit.
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| Posts: 21306 |
Posts: 21306 Written by Timmeh on 05.05.2011 at 03:49 Meh, opinions differ.  Personally I'm very thankful they created this without any extra, but I can understand others who would have liked to see it manipulated a little for at least some variation.Good review by the way - a fair rating even though it appears to be one of your more favored albums.
---- "Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something."
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| Posts: 344 |
Posts: 344 Written by Troy Killjoy on 05.05.2011 at 03:56 Thanks 
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| Insineratehymn
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Insineratehymn
Account deleted Written by Troy Killjoy on 05.05.2011 at 03:44 Quite the interesting interpretation you have there. Personally, I think the album would have been better off without the song, but to each his own. Also, I was planning on writing a review for this album, but my laziness got the best of me yet again.
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Posts: 2466  |
Posts: 2466
Not digging the album at all. These two dudes try pretty hard to be the Australian Drudkh, but they rather suck at it. To me, this is a perfect example of a bad attempt at making an "atmospheric" album with a few relatively simple chords repeated over and over again that just don't do anything. Since I've already mentioned Drudkh, I might as well use them in a comparison. While they can chug the same riff for ages and still never get boring, Austere... no such luck. It does have a few pretty good moments, mostly on "This Dreadful Emptiness", but not enough to make the whole thing worthwhile. And I'll never understand "Coma II"... Seems I'm pretty isolated in my opinion though, it's quite praised on teh Interwebz.
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 Posts: 647 |
Posts: 647
I absolutely love this album, but I finally got around to reading the lyrics. Reading: You bathe in the sunlight of spring, While I'm forever stuck in this dreary autumn. Like a flower that will never bloom From This Dreadful emptiness was just crushing.
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Posts: 132 |
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Posts: 9572
I love the vocals 
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 Posts: 1322 |
Posts: 1322
Great album. I'd put it on par with Woods Of Desolation's Torn Beyond Reason. And BTW awesome review. I totally agree with you about the negative effect of "Coma II". If you're familiar with Drudkh's Autumn Aurora, then you must know the song "First Snow". It's like "Coma II" as both seek a trance-like atmosphere. However, in Drudkh's case, it's 2 riffs in ten minutes. With Austere, 1 riff in 20 minutes, which is way, way too long.
---- In that case, man is only air as well.
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| Posts: 344 |
Posts: 344 Written by Oaken on 13.06.2012 at 14:56 WoD's Torn Beyond Reason is great, I probably enjoy it a tad more than this one as it's a bit easier on the ears but they're very close quality wise. Thanks for the compliment to .
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