I Am The Enemy is the debut album from Austen Starr, due out on 13th February 2026 via Frontiers Music Srl; and there’s a further warning in the title of her latest single, she can ‘Read Your Mind’.
“‘Read Your Mind’ was the first track written specifically for the album,” said the Stateside singer. “Joel came up with the music and most of the melody, along with the line ‘If I could read your mind, for a day or two.’ I tried to keep his lyrical hook in the lyrics while writing, and I wrote six vastly different versions of the song that I hated before finding the words I recorded.
The Joel she refers to being guitarist Joel Hoekstra (Whitesnake, Revolution Saints, Iconic, Cher, Trans-Siberian Orchestra) who’s featured on the album, alongside Chris Collier (Mick Mars, Lita Ford) on on bass and drums, keyboardist Steve Ferlazzo (Hugo’s Voyage, Avril Lavigne) and background vocalist Chloe Lowery (Trans-Siberian Orchestra).
“The final lyrics were written in a 22-minute zealous dissociation on the train ride to the studio on the day of recording,” Starr continued. “The image evoked is a freeze-frame of that unfortunate moment within a tumultuous relationship shortly before you realize you should give up on it completely. Everything feels unsteady, you’re blaming yourself without giving the other person any credit for the downfall, and you’re wishing that there was a way to make it better, when ultimately there is no resolution to be found.”
Available digitally, you can also check out the video here at RAMzine, about whoch Starr remarked: “This video is the last and the simplest of the four singles’ videos, showing clips from my vocal tracking sessions at the studio interspersed between shots of the video musicians playing the track. This track is the wistful one, and while I would hope listeners have been spared that pain, I’m sure many will be able to relate!”
Said to deliver a hard-hitting blend of contemporary rock with classic influences, drawing comparisons to artists like The Warning and Halestorm while infusing a more traditional hard rock sound. Starr is a reluctant Bostonian who’s apparently got a penchant for self-induced misery. A natural contrarian, she was raised in a household where being a musician was the last thing she was encouraged to do – So, of course, Austen recorded an album with the help of some heavy-hitters.
“I’m ecstatic to finally be releasing an actual album!” said Starr “This project has been a long time coming–a lifetime in the making, as cliché as that may be. It’s a really wild feeling to be putting music out into the world after being so afraid to for the duration of my existence, and the fact that the first couple of songs have been received well is completely blowing my anxious, self-deprecating mind. With the release of this debut album, I feel like I’m putting my life in your hands just to see what you’ll do with it. It’s terrifying, exhilarating, and freeing. Thank you so much to everyone at Frontiers, thank you to Joel Hoekstra, Chris Collier, Steve Ferlazzo, and Chloe Lowery, thank you to everyone who has made this project possible, and thank you to everyone who listens to the music. I hope you all enjoy it!”
I Am The Enemy features the tracks:‘Remain Unseen’, ‘Medusa’, 3. I Am The Enemy’
4. Read Your Mind’, 5. Get Out Alive’, 6. Effigy’, ‘Running Out Of Time’, 8. All Alone’, 9. Not This Life’, 10. The Light’ and ‘Until I See You Again’ – It can be ordered here.
Of the three singles previously released, the most recent was ‘Medusa’ with Starr commenting: “‘Medusa’ tells a story where I’m this evil seductress who strings guys along just to break their hearts and ‘turn (them) to stone.’ For the video, we definitely took creative liberties with the myth. Medusa’s mask keeps her power sealed, and she is playing with the guy like a cat plays with a mouse, but she intends to let him go – with a turn when he really falls for her.
“‘Medusa’ has a special place in my heart because I wrote the song when I was really young and pretending to be confident, and it became the demo shown to Frontiers that sparked the entire album. I’m still waiting on that confidence, but this one little song from forever ago has cultivated something better than I ever could have imagined. I hope ‘Medusa’ evokes a feeling of power in listeners the way that writing and performing it did for me!”
“’Remain Unseen’ is a heavier track than my first single, ‘I Am the Enemy’, she remarked about her other singles. “Lyrically, it creates a realistic remix of the fantastical Alice In Wonderland story by tweaking it into an adult situation and giving the beloved protagonist a sinister spin. I’m excited for this song to become part of your summer-to-fall soundtrack! Down the rabbit hole we go!”
You can stream the single here, while regarding the accompanying video that you can check out here at RAMzine, she added: “The ‘Remain Unseen’ video was kept simple and performance-based, but still fast-paced, because it puts more focus on the song itself. It was fun to shoot a video using just the white cyc wall with some lights, amps, and cables after shooting such elaborate scenes for other videos.”
Setting the stage for its release was the aforementioned debut single, ‘I Am The Enemy’ – With its music video, available to view below.
“I’m very excited and very grateful to be working with Frontiers,” Starr said at the time. “Despite me being a brand-new artist, they were highly supportive of my vision and they gave me free reign in terms of artistic expression. It’s really, really cool of a label to do that for a debut. Thank you, Frontiers!”
Regarding her first single, she said: “’I Am The Enemy’ leans slightly into ‘pop,’ but has been a favourite of everyone involved in the project, and the timing seemed right for a summer release to be this upbeat and deceptively saccharine. The video intends to show the dichotomy that exists around my desire to live within this rockstar persona; one side is really tortured about it and the other is excited about it. The version of me that you see on the Viper Room stage is the culmination and resolution of those two parts.
While Starr considers herself to be an “anxious wreck,” she’s channelled her inner turmoil and contradictions into a compelling musical statement . She admits both to hating bad grammar and to using it in one of her own songs because it fits the meter. When she’s not rocking out on stage or recording, Austen is learning guitar, embracing “emo karaoke nights,” and forging ahead with a relentless, albeit trepidatious, determination to carve out her place in the music world.
