Olde Outlier | From Shallow Lives To Shallow Graves | Iron Bonehead Productions

Release Date: 19 December 2025

Format: CD, vinyl LP

Genre: Black Metal

Country: Australia

Olde Outlier rises from a long underground lineage, and that history gives their first full-length a certain gravity. Beau Dyer, once the driving force behind Innsmouth and previously Grenade, returns with a fresh team that still carries echoes of those older groups through shared members. Appleton and Greenbank once handled Innsmouth material on stage, while Askew brings the same guitar instinct he sharpened in Grenade. The band might share bloodlines with the past, although what they carve out now is its own twisted corner of Australian black metal, darker and more ancient in character.

“From Shallow Lives To Shallow Graves” drops the listener into a heavy, cavernous sound that leans on long structures and steady pressure. Instead of piling on needless technical decoration, the band move with patience and grit. The music has an earthy pull, shaped by influences that lurk beneath the surface rather than scream their origins. You can hear hints of Armoured Angel and early Samael, then something more spectral, maybe a bit of Ophthalamia or early Katatonia drifting around the edges. Everything is coated in a sooty haze until the edges blur and the reference points stop mattering.

Appleton’s voice keeps the whole thing anchored. His low growls have a ghastly tone, nothing theatrical, just raw and cavernborn. Around him, the guitars stretch out with wider phrasing than Innsmouth ever used. There is more space between the notes, more open air where lead lines can twist, and the occasional use of chorused guitar gives the album a strange glow. The bass sits warm under all of it, adding a steady pulse that supports the long climbs and descents.

Across the album’s four long tracks, Olde Outlier builds something slow and engulfing. Ideas grow gradually, sometimes returning in twisted form, sometimes dissolving into new paths. The band trust repetition as a tool for hypnosis, and they know how to let time work for them. There is no rush to reach a climax. Instead, tension thickens in increments. When a guitar line rises or shifts direction, the moment carries more weight precisely because it took its time getting there.

The mix is rough around the edges, which suits the band’s personality. It has the feel of something carved out of stone instead of assembled piece by piece. Even when the band reach more melodic territory, the tone stays rooted in earth and smoke. This blend of ruggedness and distant, almost dreamlike traces gives the album a strange pull. It is dark, but not in a polished or theatrical way. More like wandering into a cave and finding old carvings on the wall, half hidden in soot.

“From Shallow Lives To Shallow Graves” demands attention but doesn’t lecture the listener. It draws you in by letting the music throb and stretch until your sense of time bends with it. The atmosphere absorbs you slowly rather than knocking you flat. For a debut, it stands on steady legs and opens a path that Olde Outlier can travel deeper into. It may not reach the heights of a future masterpiece, although it already shows a band who understand their terrain.

Score: 6.5

www.ironbonehead.de

www.ironboneheadproductions.bandcamp.com

www.facebook.com/ironboneheadproductions