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artist: Ataraxie
title: Le DΘclin
year: 2024
genre: Metal
type: Album
label: Ardua Music
language: French
rel. date: 2024-10-25
source: WEB/MP3
quality: CBR 320kbps / 44.1 kHz / Full Stereo
runtime: 01:21:28
size: 195.61MB
rip date: 2024-10-24
source url: http://deezer.com/album/638915831
tracklist:
1. Le DΘclin 16:48
2. Vomisseurs de Vide 22:02
3. Glory of Ignominy 21:20
4. The Collapse 21:18
release notes:
As mankind takes one breath beyond our collective resignation to impending
doom we collectively begin vomiting out emptiness in anxious desperation,
becoming sick with the caustic environmental greying that comes from the
repeated whip of unnatural disaster and perpetually collapsing fortitudes.
Here we not only witness the decline but live it in both psychic and
body-shattering bouts guided by the hand(s) of Rouen, France-borne funeral
death/doom metal quintet ATARAXIE per this sixth full-length album. æLe
DΘclinæ posits not only the heat death of the Earth but the deterioration of
human minds scoured by the perfection of social engineering, the resulting
loss of personage and will Ætil dehumanization is complete. Despite the
harrowing chaos and slow-burning death depicted in their craft these fellowes
are yet masters of the steady and focused funereal dirge, a sonically rich
and brilliantly focused death/doom metal experience down to the last detail.
Though this massive ~82 minute double LP will be imposing at a glance there
is a fiery charge behind its actions thatÆll keep the body marching toward
the end rather than completely burying the listener in ash.
Ataraxie formed as a quartet circa 2000 having been inspired by a love for
æold schoolÆ death doom as well as the more melodic and romanticist ideas
injected into the early 90Æs Scandinavian/U.K. ideal. This was reflected
within a series of two live recordings (presented as demos) and the wildly
underrated æThe Other Pathæ (2003) CD-r demo, a forgotten rarity today which
was ultimately a ~45 minute debut album in a death/doom metal style. This
wasnÆt a æPeaceville threeö style but something closer to what bands like
Worship (they even covered ôWithering Gloomö), Loss and Mourning Beloveth
were doing in terms of keeping the classic (non-Celtic Frost induced) style
of death-doom extreme by way of funeral death/doom metalÆs precipice. This
effect is emphasized on æProject Xæ a full re-recording of the demo from
2011. This was much more clear once theyÆd realized their impressive though
not all that wildly characterized debut LP (æSlow Transcending Agonyæ, 2005).
Consider the next couple of releases from the band a period of honing in on
their signature and finding a way to keep that separate from their funeral
doom metal side-project Funeralium at the same time.
Around the peaking conceptual undertaking of æLÆEtre et la Naus?Θ?eæ (2013)
Ataraxie had (seemingly) reached for every extreme, experimented with a
variety of sounds, and produced what was their most elaborate album to date
and, as IÆd noted in brief review of their 2019 release æR?Θ?sign?Θ?sæ, this
was also the point where their original/co-founding guitarist Sylvain EstΦve
(Stabwound) exited the band. This was an important point of reset for the
band as theyÆd onboarded two more guitarists in 2014, taking the time to
rearrange past material into three guitar suites and expand their live
capabilities. Of course this lead to much heavier, soul crushing fifth LP and
a new peak beyond the prior album. I liked that album enough to sift through
their discography and found IÆd liked the demo and fifth album most largely
for the sake of the riffcraft being more active death metal riffs and less
chugged-at slow motion chunking. So, the expectations for a new Ataraxie
record nearly twenty five years into their gig is that itÆll be huge, and it
is a four song double LP after all, but also that it will repeat the
successes and production values of the prior LP (and it does.)
Ensuring a bleak as possible mood is set from the start opener ôLe DΘclinö is
generally insufferable around the edges with a cauterizing heat at its
center-point. This ~17 minute slow-strummed narrative lead by simple
exchanges between clean guitars and distorted undercurrents works around its
middle gut of finely set Mournful Congregation-esque harmonized leads and
hypnotic step, an event which goes on too long for its own good and earns its
ôextreme doomö stripes out the gate. The amount of spoken word en franτais
featured on this song should probably deter those looking for an album that
gets right to the riff and the roar of things. I personally felt the shouting
narration at the end was worth the extended build but, sure, be warned that
this first song will weed out anyone who doesnÆt have the patience for this
record with its opening toll. That said, there are plenty more riffs and
death metal worthy rhythms ahead. In that opening piece we get a sense for
the commanding drum presence, struck in the center and reverberating off the
back wall and amped within the cloud of ringing distortion provided by two
main rhythm guitar layers implied. We donÆt fully get a sense for how the
harsh register of the vocalist carries through when all things are in full
resound just yet, so, sitting in anticipation will be worth it in the long
run. For my own taste this opener took some time to appreciate (and translate
at least a bit) for its severity, largely its staggered procession, but it
works so well as the hinge point to return to when leaving the album to play
on loop.
The hiss of Ataraxieæs mounded-up guitar tones and the dramatic sustain of
their multi-layered rhythmic thunder brings us into ôVomisseurs de Videö
under ominous circumstance, slowly humming abreast frequencies which give way
to despairing clean guitar interruptus Ætil the rushing and toppling death
metal stride arrives at a nauseated waltz around ~6 minutes in. The song
really rides this riff out, leaning into the socked forth push of the drums
and atmospheric drone of their tremolo picked feed into the abyss. The
corridor created is one of my favorite moments on the album and truly the
first complete ride into immersion before they begin to do what they do best,
big and roaring despair with doom metal riffs girding the gloom. This song
alone is worth the price of admission to æLe DΘclinæ and probably the most
eventful piece which sets the standard for the two that follow, each of which
is roughly ~21 minutes long as well. YouÆll find that both ôGlory of
Ignominyö and ôThe Collapseö operate in roughly ~7 minute cycles before a
pace change or eventful stir occurs. The former is arguably more nuanced in
its shifts in death metallic tempo throughout and the latter ramping up its
first two thirds before strumming out into a despairing endpoint.
There is of course more detail here than suggested at a glance though the joy
of funeral death/doom metal is that it reads on a surface level as riff-based
death metal at a taxing pace but when given due attentive ear a certain level
of depth is revealed moment by moment. That is to say that Ataraxie have been
more sparse in the distant past and this album matches the layered thick
intensity of æR?Θ?sign?Θ?sæ well, never slowing to a point of empty or
aimless stance. And much like that previous album there are points of severe
emotional outburst which are appreciable, affecting even if read as
performative, such as the broken shouting that ends ôVomisseurs de Videö and
the similar tirades at the middle of ôGlory of Ignominy.ö If nothing else
they sell the decline unto the end as a pitiful and painful exit from
existence where suffering is extended just long enough to warrant such
tragedian illustration. For my own taste this is a natural high point for the
band as æLe DΘclinæ doesnÆt deflate into beauteous, self-warming ônostalgieö
in the face of abject ruin but finds its wrath (re: death metal fed unrest)
in the conflict of the end-time mindset available here. While it is a
demanding gut-heavy piece of work there is a rare essence to glean from these
folks work which IÆd found most brilliant when left to churn and stretch into
its melodrama on repeated listens.