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ATARAXY
Where All Hope Fades

Me Saco un Ojo / Dark Descent (2018)
Rating: 8/10

Having been a huge fan of Ataraxy’s 2012 debut Revelations Of The Etheral, I couldn’t wait to get my bloody mitts on their sophomore opus. This Spanish outfit have always impressed me with their style of death metal, and with new platter Where All Hope Fades we get another 45 minutes of metal to savour.

The album is introduced to us by the doom-laden nods of opening instrumental ‘The Absurdity Of A Whole Cosmos’, before things really take off with the epic ‘A Matter Lost In Time’. This is an epic 11-minute sprawl which stars with cold, ethereal clambering of percussive gloom and Gothic realisation as the guitars fizz with suspense and the bass heaves.

Javi’s vocals are an eerie, distant cough of the sombreness. Chesty, reaching wheezes emerge from the thick wall of dread whereby morose leads infiltrate the murk, the track being a mere plod of monolithic proportions as the quartet drifts into the damp, dank realms of doomy-death. The mustiness of air is suffocating, and one can almost see the condensation dripping from the cavern walls as the drums echo like some gargantuan beast plodding to its dreary lair to give one final sigh. And that’s where this monstrous track sits, as a beckoning, dread-filled grave trudge of dismal musicianship. But when a spurt of life does come to the fore, it’s still only as a soaking wet drizzle of deathliness; Ataraxy picking up the pace to become the mouldy old school-styled death metal act we know and love before they soon resort back to that despairing trudge bereft of cheer.

‘A Matter Lost In Time’ is a wondrously melancholic song, which makes way for ‘One Last Certainty’ as a cold draught suddenly rushes from a crack in the clammy walls and the guitars and bass work in tandem to create a soggy slug of doom-laden quality. Hints of black metal humidity fill the ears as stark, tortured melodies slowly heave themselves akin to a slimy substance oozing from some gaping wound, the drums rolling with suspense before the outfit lurches itself into a speedy, dehydrated death metal romp.

Eerie melodious passages of gore-soaked gloominess punctuate the already squelchy atmosphere, before another monolith, ‘As Uembras d’o Hibierno’, comes seemingly wistfully from its sepulchral lair. A slow, stark nod of creepiness kick-starts this seven-minute atrocity before again we’re rinsed by this epic, doom-death procedure whereby Javi’s vocals attempt to reach beyond the mesh of creeping guitars and sodden drum slogs.

‘The Mourning Path’ is more of a straight up traipse of deathliness, but still massive in its construction. This time Viejo’s drums speed up to create a black wall of fizzing evil as Edu’s bass frantically attempts to keep up with proceedings. Even so, it’s still utterly dank, guttural and soaked through with sickly gloom, but it’s also the fastest tune on offer; an abrasive, hoarse and above all hammering beast with nice injections of slower melody.

The final cut, ‘The Blackness Of Eternal Night’, comes trickling in, and again we have those ethereal atmospherics for this 12-minute behemoth before the slow-motion doom traits come to the fore; crushing, dominant riffage without sense of haste except for maybe the constant percussive ticking of terror. Think of, maybe, Pestilence or Asphyx combined with the fetid or of, say, Grave Miasma. A mighty cauldron of despair, despondency and deathly dynamics drenched in funeral drapery before the final curtain comes down to bring this miserable and dim affair to a halt. Good stuff, if you appreciate all that is gloom.

Neil Arnold

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