Ataraxie
L'être et la Nausée

Release Date: 2013 | Tracklist

Sometimes our lives are not peaceful, sometimes our lives are not that happy. With that in mind, there’s always room for the depressive parts in our minds to take the lead in our thoughts. Sit back, think, how do you feel when the weight of the world falls on your shoulders? It’s not a nice story of heroic possibilities, it’s a crushing wave of pressure that steadily gets heavier and heavier. What awaits you on the other side of despair? Well, that’s the journey you’ll have to take to find out. Ataraxie’s ‘L’Être Et La Nausée’ is a haunting journey through the misty moors of melancholy and despair only stopping to present a wave of sonic destruction to a point of glaringly subtle twists and turns in the listeners’ mind. If there was ever an album that was capable of unhinging minds, (we all talk about “bone-crushing” heaviness, but how many people have actually had to get the bones in their arms plastered back together due to a metal record?) Ataraxie would have the very potential to send the masses to mental clinics due to an expansive and rather intriguing use of metal music ingenuity. Thankfully, music can only convey the effect of such a dramatic issue, but this effect does not go unnoticed.

L’Être Et La Nausée is not a bash and dash listen. The album is atmospheric, grand and over-whelming, it’s albums like these that make the extreme metal world turn and turn again. With a play time of one hour and twenty minutes, the quick listen idealism goes directly out the window. The album might only have five tracks but the content itself surpasses the usual stylizing of the genre. Ataraxie go beyond the usual stigma of a death influenced atmospheric doom metal band and make the most of the music that has matured in front of them. It’s not that the songs are long, they’re detailed to a point where the last dulcet tone rings memorably in the listeners’ ears. Take the album opener for example, the track is relatively monolithic. Slow melancholics meet winding atmospherics till the track builds into a climatic world of apocalyptic insanity. That might sound like a whole lot of fancy words but the sound accentuates the primal and almost demonic vocals that take the center stage of Ataraxie’s 2013 record. It’s a tone setter, one of anguish, despair and agony only to be twisted with insanity, The track truly represents its name sake, ‘Procession Of The Insane Ones’.

As a whole, this album does what it needs to and more, each track is a journey, a chapter, that fits completely into the next. Even the album’s shortest foray into the deep, ‘Etats d’Ame’ makes a triumphant change of pace. It allows the album to add a mystique, beautiful and gracefully atmospheric. Rustic gates add to the layering of the track, tying into the cymbal chimes and clean guitar tones. It’s an excellent break for an album seeping in such depth and despair. When it comes down to it, Ataraxie’s ‘L’Être Et La Nausée’ is a successful follow up to Anhedonie all the way back in 2008. It takes the beginnings of an album that ‘should have been’ and in turn, culminates into an album of its own form. It’s without a question that Ataraxie have come full circle with an album that highlights the members collective careers. ‘L’Être Et La Nausée’ is a spectacular extreme metal release in the year 2013, the only problem is, ‘L’Être Et La Nausée’ is not the only record to be released this to turn heads. The big question still remains, ‘what awaits you on the other side of despair?’

4.7/5

Tweet

Recent reviews by this author
Cognizance Phantazein	Sarmat Determined To Strike
Thy Catafalque Alföld	Esoctrilihum Astraal Constellations of the Majickal Zodiac
Blindfolded and Led to the Woods Rejecting Obliteration	Impetuous Ritual Iniquitous Barbarik Synthesis

user ratings (89)

rate it Awful - 1 Very Poor - 1.5 Poor - 2 Average - 2.5 Good - 3 Great - 3.5 Excellent - 4 Superb - 4.5 Classic - 5

4 excellent

Rank: #28 for 2013