Reviews

 - "One could say that record store ‘Hellion Record’ in Rouen has an important role in the origin and continuation of this French doom/death band. That’s the place where new musicians were found to join Ataraxie. At the end of 2000 Ataraxie was founded, arising out of the ashes of black metal band Reign Of Evil. It was an initiative of singer/bass player Jonathan Thery. In the Spring of 2002 the first preparations took place and the early recordings of ‘The Other Path’ began, set for a self-produced release in January 2003.

Gigs with Himinbjorg (fantastic Swedish pagan metal) and the French cult band SUP opened the road to more fame so that in February 2003 Ataraxie opened the Doomination of Europe tour in the UK and their hometown Rouen. We’re dealing here with the mostly death allied group of the package.

Opener and the longest track of this CD ‘The Other Path’ shows us the doomiest side of the band. The song starts rather threateningly. We hear a gargling death grunt and fine passages where guitarists Fréderick and Sylvain deserve a feather on their cap. An atmospheric outro with a solemn organ sets the tone. Straight after this pure death metal riffs followed by blast beats with black metal screams engulf us. ‘Behind The Mask’ offers slow Black Sabbath riffs but accelerates to a glorious hubbub. In the middle of all this bold as brass metal there’s a constant flow of melodic guitar lines. In ‘The Isle Of The Dead’ we dive into some atmospheric parts. Sometimes it’s not easy to follow the nervous breaks. But I am charmed again by ‘Unholy Prayer’ with its doomy nature and quiet traditional guitar picking. The band still has to grow but considering it as a first effort it is not bad at all. And Ataraxie is a productive band, for they have already written enough new songs for a second release. These songs will be slower and more doom metal than their first release. A promise for the future!

Rating 76/100 "

 - "I really like your cd - it sounds really, really cold! A frost of doom cast down upom the world!"

 - "I must say it's great piece of doom/death metal. Especially title track 'the other Path' is great. I am very proud to have this track included on my compilation attached to Shroud of Woe #1."

 - "To be fair, France is not exactly one of the main countries where one has come to expect old-school Doom Metal bands to crop up. In actual fact, Despond and Monolithe are the only names that spring to mind willing to carry the genre's flag. To this list, we may now add Ataraxie.

The band manages to impress from the very beginning of the first track off their gloomy musical proposition; nine minutes of sheer misery and heaviness, adorned with time signature changes and arrangements that already show a great deal of compositional skill and care, thus managing to add variety without sacrificing their preferred style.

As a matter of fact, "style" is an ever-recurring word during all of this CD's fourty-plus minutes. In spite of the noticeable Black and Death Metal influences (which I understand will not be quite as prominent on future releases), it soon becomes clear that it is, above all, Doom that Ataraxie have sold their souls to.

Marquis' vocal register is both dense and guttural, Fred and Sylvain are a noteworthy guitar duo that sometimes succeed in recreating the precious harmonic ornaments Yearning resurrected on their first album and, at their most painfully slow, "The Other Path" almost manages to reach the sonic depths of Evoken- high praise indeed. The closing track has been named "Alone in my Coffin", a title that itself adequately describes the listener's feeling once the album is over.

If the new songs I have had the chance of witnessing live (far slower, more dense and brutal) are indeed an accurate indication of what is to come, I have no doubts that Ataraxie's next piece of work could be truly devastating. Nonetheless, this demo of above-reasonable length comes highly recommended as a more than worthy entrant, courtesy of a promising band. "

 - "Despite the fact that I have heard many ironic and devaluating comments about the French metal scene, I have only good things to tell about the French doom metal bands I've heard thus far: Worship, Despond, Monolithe and this Ataraxie are all unique, self-willed doom entities with their own style, personality and approach.

Ataraxie represents the most brutal, relentless and unforgiving side of the doom spectrum. The band is clearly not only influenced by bands belonging to the doom scene like early My Dying Bride ('As the flower withers' era) and diSEMBOWELMENT, but the influence of other deities of the extreme metal genre like Morbid Angel and Dissection is also strong.

Much like death/grind/doom pioneers diSEMBOWELMENT, Ataraxie understands the art of combining heavenly, painstakingly slow doom with hateful, brutal blastbeat accelerations. The frequent use of twin guitar harmonies and melodic solo's, reminding of the great Dissection, is clearly an asset of this band. Add to all this the low, steady grunts and hateful screams of bassist/vocalist Jonathan Thery, the technical, furious guitar riffs and high-quality drumming and you can only agree with me that Ataraxie is a force to be reckoned with.

Furthermore, as much as I am satisfied with the recording quality of this demo (especially given the circumstances), I hope to see Ataraxie signed soon. Hopefully, a contract with a label shall give them the opportunity to make use of a satisfying recording budget, which shall enable them to compete with the likes of diSEMBOWELMENT, Dusk and Ceremonium for the title of heaviest doom band around! In the meanwhile I would like to encourage all fans of the aforementioned bands to order this demo by sending an email to Webmaster@ataraxie.fr.st. "

 - "Ataraxie s'est constitué en décembre 2000, originaire de Rouen, le groupe s'est forgé une solide expérience sur scène (concerts avec SUP, Lux Incerta, ou Aes Dana...). Ce premier album à l'artwork froid et sombre se situe un style doom death brutal (ici, rien à voir avec les groupes atmosphériques / gothiques qui ont émergé ces dernières années, et qui n'ont retenu du doom que quelques ambiances ou tempos), quelque part entre Morbid Angel et My Dying Bride. Ataraxie reprend donc avec talent le flambeau de feu disembowlement (groupe australien disparu en 1993).

Pas de quartier dès la première compo, "The Other path" donne un bon aperçu du savoir faire du groupe. Ataraxie maîtrise les variations de tempo qui arrivent par surprise, les guitares sont tour à tour puissantes et lourdes où toutes en harmonies (on songe parfois à My Dying Bride où Evoken), sans oublier les vocalises d'outre tombe de Jonathan et les parties de batteries de Pierre qui ne néglige pas les cymbales dans son jeu. Quelques claviers font leur apparitions en conclusion de The Other Path et sur Behind the mask (réalisées par Siegfried de Luen-Ta).

On a le sentiment que l'album va crescendo jusqu'à la tuerie ultime qu'est "Eternal suffering", où Ataraxie blaste avec une efficacité redoutable. Mais que l'on ne se méprenne pas, la suite de l'album reste captivante, comme en témoigne le riff de guitare très accrocheur sur "The Isle of the dead", où la encore les variations de tempos prennent à la gorge.

Ataraxie vient de réaliser une tuerie, ni plus ni moins, et redonne des couleurs à une scène doom heaxagonale anémique, on attend donc la suite avec impatience en souhaitant qu'un label donne au groupe les moyens de ces ambitions. "

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Vera: The second band on stage had a bigger impact on me: ATARAXIE from Paris. In February 2003 I got to know this group by their demo ‘The Other Path’. Guitar player Fred told me before the concert already that they would play only one song from that demo anymore, for they are busy working on preparations for new recordings. This new names were presented tonight by the names of ‘Funeral Hymn’, ‘From Agony To Eternity’, ‘L’Ataraxie’ and ‘Another Day Of Despondency’ and they sounded explosive and tense. The extreme death/doom was received with enthusiasm, so we can conclude that Ataraxie is a band in full expansion.

Setlist Ataraxie:
Funeral Hymn
From Agony To Eternity
The Other Path
L’Ataraxie
Another Day Of Despondency


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 - "First up were Ataraxie a French band that I had not known were playing. The first chords ebbed out in a manner that was slower than it takes a lump of Camembert to rot.

Jonathon Thery had some strong vocals and interspersed things with what I at first thought were very out of place screams. It all made sense as the band suddenly launched into an unexpected salvo of blast beats. It wasn't long before they chugged back into the previous barren pace but they had succeeded in giving us an impromptu wake up call. They also got a huge round of applause that seemed louder than the somewhat sparse crowd should have been able to decry.

Ataraxie continued in this manner and went from brain numbing slow slabs to almost death metal velocity with a consummate ease. One second you were entranced and the next literally bowled over. It was a bit like giving an OAP a sudden burst of caffeine and then watching them sink back into Valium induced dribbling.

They ended up getting me headbanging by the end and went down a storm with everyone in attendance. With that in mind new album The Other Path seems like a wise investment."

 - "…At roughly 7:15 PM, Ataraxie took to the stage to a jaunty collection of cheers and applause from the surprisingly small crowd - there must have been less than 100 people in attendance at that point, and most were seemingly far more interested in their drinks.

However, their interest soon was diverted to Ataraxie, who blasted through a majority of the doom/death masterpieces from their 'The Other Path' Demo CD which had been released just a few weeks before, as well as one or two other, previously released songs energetically.

Though I had little knowledge of the band and any of their songs, having only listened to a few tracks downloaded from the internet days before hand, I will surely recognize them all with delight when I come to purchase 'The Other Path', which their powerful performance strongly inspired me to do.

The band's good quality, uncompromisingly heavy mixture of death and doom metal, with additional blast beats and very occasional pauses for melody pleased the Underworld's attendance very much, and by the end of their extremely impressive set, most of the crowd were at least nodding their heads in appreciation, if not enthusiastically bouncing up and down with severity and joy.

I think I speak for most people who witnessed Ataraxie at the Underworld that night when I say that their fervent display of sorrow and aggression was heartily affective and impressive, and this band are highly worthy of note as a scorching hot prospect for all fans of heavy music, and are encouraged for attention from any doom-metal fan - their vigorous and striking live performance being especially deserved of praise.

After half an hour or so of Ataraxie stolidly driving their music into our ear drums as if they were doing so with a massively powerful hammer (much to our enjoyment, of course), they left the stage to a hefty applause from an ever-growing Underworld crowd…"

 - "Ataraxie entame la soirée. En deux ans existence le groupe n'a pas perdu son temps, leur premier album "The Other Path" vient d'émerger des ténèbres, et une série de concerts à son actif. Ataraxie avait d'ailleurs participé au début de la tournée Doomination en Irlande et en Angleterre.
Tout ça pour dire que le groupe est parfaitement en place, et ne fait pas de quartier. Quant au style, certains parlent volontiers de brutal doom, disons qu'à la hache le groupe se situerait quelque part entre My Dying Bride, Morbid Angel, sans oublier Bethlehem et les divins Evoken... Recette déjà éprouvée par feu diSEMBOWLEMENT (groupe austalien disparu en 1993).

Et sur scène c'est terriblement efficace, l'alternance surprenante de blast beats et de passages doom ultimes est ravageuse. Ataraxie reçoit un bon accueil et une trentaine de minutes plus tard, laisse la place aux anglais de The Prophecy "

" En tout cas, le concert de Rouen valait le déplacement, histoire de découvrir un groupe français prometteur, et de reprendre avec plaisir une bonne dose de Doomination..."