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. ‘Le Déclin‘ 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 ’til 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 that’ll 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 ‘old school’ death doom as well as the more melodic and romanticist ideas injected into the early 90’s Scandinavian/U.K. ideal. This was reflected within a series of two live recordings (presented as demos) and the wildly underrated ‘The Other Path‘ (2003) CD-r demo, a forgotten rarity today which was ultimately a ~45 minute debut album in a death/doom metal style. This wasn’t a ‘Peaceville three” style but something closer to what bands like Worship (they even covered “Withering Gloom”), 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 metal’s precipice. This effect is emphasized on ‘Project X‘ a full re-recording of the demo from 2011. This was much more clear once they’d realized their impressive though not all that wildly characterized debut LP (‘Slow Transcending Agony‘, 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 ‘L’Etre et la Naus​é​e‘ (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 I’d noted in brief review of their 2019 release ‘R​é​sign​é​s‘, this was also the point where their original/co-founding guitarist Sylvain Estève (Stabwound) exited the band. This was an important point of reset for the band as they’d 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 I’d 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 it’ll 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 “Le Déclin” 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 “extreme doom” stripes out the gate. The amount of spoken word en français 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 doesn’t 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 don’t 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 Ataraxie‘s mounded-up guitar tones and the dramatic sustain of their multi-layered rhythmic thunder brings us into “Vomisseurs de Vide” under ominous circumstance, slowly humming abreast frequencies which give way to despairing clean guitar interruptus ’til 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 ‘Le Déclin‘ 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. You’ll find that both “Glory of Ignominy” and “The Collapse” 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 ‘R​é​sign​é​s‘ 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 “Vomisseurs de Vide” and the similar tirades at the middle of “Glory of Ignominy.” 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 ‘Le Déclin‘ doesn’t deflate into beauteous, self-warming “nostalgie” 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 I’d found most brilliant when left to churn and stretch into its melodrama on repeated listens. A high recommendation.

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