A quiet heartache threads through Tomb. It's a universal feeling, the kind that piles up over the years and yearns for resolution. The 12 songs came together quickly, out of necessity following his first true heartbreak around Christmas 2017 -- and while Tomb was born from this breakup, the album expanded to explore years of loss and disappointment. Throughout, De Augustine sings of his first love ("Tomb"), attempts to reconcile possible past mistakes ("You Needed Love, I Needed You"), and reckoning with how personal and familial history impacts present and future relationships ("Kaitlin," "Bird Has Flown"). Like the best albums about heartbreak, Tomb transforms pain into beauty. "This album is at its core a prayer for hope and clarity, and a prayer for love," he says. Ultimately Tomb reflects a beginning for De Augustine -- both emotionally and in his career. It's a motion towards positivity, addressing lost love, the worthwhile cost of honesty, and the ramifications of regret. In the end, Tomb isn't about burying or hiding something away, it's about opening the seal and letting something new emerge. The album's title reveals these sentiments: "Throughout our lives we bury many dead things in our hearts and minds," he says. "There they go to rest and hopefully are reborn as something beautiful for the world to behold." Tomb is a musical breakthrough for De Augustine, with Bartlett's artful production spotlighting his increasingly impressive songwriting. Working in a professional studio marked a significant shift from his previous albums, 2014's Spirals of Silence and 2017's Swim Inside The Moon, which each were recorded in his bathtub using a reel-to-reel machine and a single Shure SM57 microphone.
