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Yeah, I’m late with this. Water is blue, climate change is stripping us from all the snow so I literally had a green Christmas and the parsley on my balcony began sprouting on December 23rd. Tell me something new.<\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t kept up with my journalistic duties as of late, and to be frank, I don\u2019t intend to entirely rectify this matter shortly. Yet, I\u2019ve no desire to completely neglect them either, so despite the fact we’re past list season, we’re looking at the latest doom metal from Ataraxie<\/strong>, Fvneral Fvkk<\/strong>, The Lone Madman<\/strong>, Esoteric<\/strong> &<\/strong> Isole<\/strong>. Just in case you missed some of it, and we both know you did.<\/p>\n

Ataraxie<\/strong><\/a> – R\u00e9sign\u00e9s<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

An unnaturally heavy album consisting of four monumental (by virtue of length alone) pieces of death\/doom. There’s not too much in the way of riffs, but it’s all made up for with pure sonic devastation, soul-shaking tones, crooked melodies and an unrelenting, suffocating atmosphere. The compositions are extremely drawn out, but the length has been treated as an additional instrument, a tool of songwriting in itself, not a byproduct of it. Means, not an end. The three guitarists weave genuine, even interplay between them, one section poses a question, the next expands on it and the third may bring an answer. There is a similar relation of continuity to the songs themselves, even though there are no direct callbacks. Though R\u00e9sign\u00e9s<\/em> often dips to the funeral pace, it never feels less than lavish, every inch of these massive compositions is crammed. And where crushingly heavy despair may be contrasted against somber picking and the pace of an eon against blast beats, it is never done in the most obvious way. Ataraxie makes music that is extremely demanding even by the standards of demanding metal music, but with patience they have such sights to offer.<\/p>\n