ATARAXIE is a funeral death/doom band from France, who formed in 2000. Their latest album, “Le déclin,” is their sixth full-length Album; they have also released three splits and two demos. I've been looking forward to something new from this band since 2019's “Résignés.” Fortunately, the album sounds like it hasn’t been a five year gap. But their time was spent well as they picked up a third guitarist! It definitely adds a new dimension to their sound. Although there isn’t anything complicated (it’s funeral doom, doesn’t need to be), their clean instrumentation is more intricate and detailed. The distorted tones have been amplified too, of course. This is a big, meaty album built upon opaque tones.

The title track opens the album and happens to be the shortest song on the album at “only” 16 minutes and change. The song has a long intro of clean tones–the band has a knack for making even clean notes sound deep and bottomless. The spoken word lyrics lend it a theatrical quality, a tragic play that centers around the ever encroaching ideals of death and depression brought on by our own dehumanization. By the six minute mark the distortion lays heavily among the death growls. This is no longer only a song but a force of.nature that slowly rumbles by until the 12:30 mark when clean tones make a return but this time mixed with the distortion. “Vomisseurs de vide” begins much more immediately with the thunder riffs being wounded Into the fabric of the song by the drums. A brief interlude of sorts bridges the two growling practice areas before breakdown once more to a stripped down approach. This movement back and forth between light and dark paths showcases how unrelenting the album can be with a slow tempo through the use of melancholic, beak avenues.

“Glory of Ignominy,” has some of the most menacing guitar and bass tones on the album. It's insane how deceptively simple this song is. Sometimes layers and the use of liminal spaces is just as important as anything a complicated way could create. The tempo speeds up very slightly as the desperation in the vocals gets more pervasive. It fades out to hear silence later, the echoes of the previous minutes still calling out even as the silence becomes maddening. After the distortion kicks back in, the song is plunged into unfathomable depths. Here, a churning wave of fear and anxiety swirls together. “The Collapse,” is the final song and it does feel like everything is breaking down, coming to the end after shooting put the other side of this downward spiral. The drums and vocal wails increase the tension as the song gets deeper and deeper. A surge of tempo brings out the band's death metal side, trading boiling rage instead of a slow burn.

ATARAXIE's “Le déclin” is the band taking its next logical steps while embracing what makes them so damn good in the first place. This album harnesses the power of doom with layers upon layers that makes it as engaging as it is cavernous.