LP Review: "Where All Hope Fades" by Ataraxy

Where All Hope Fades

As of this writing, it's nearly the middle of February and since the world has changed, all of our winters months have become largely the same in St. Louis.

They are cold, warm, hot, cold, warm, cold, cold, and grey.

It's usually around this time, after the Suberb Owls have flown, before baseball heats up, and when hockey is in its slumber that St. Louis finds itself here.

Where is here?

It's a place where there is very little. The people are staying inside of their homes. The bands are staying away.

The salt remains all over the ground and the trees still sport their barren look. It's the ugly underside of winter here. If we still got snow, it would be glorious. My daughter and I have only had a single snowball fight this year...

Ataraxy

So, it's gloomy really.

We have all the awfulness of winter with none of the beauty. Lucy Pevensie described a very different winter to Mr. Tumnus than what we seem to experience every year.

During the greyness of this winter, a band from Zaragoza, Spain is going to unleash the soundtrack of the season.

From the moment track one starts spinning...it enveloped me.

There are different uses for different types of music, and we may have covered that here, but Where All Hope Fades isn't the kind of record to put on in the background while you fold the laundry or play a video game.

These tracks demand to be heard. They are pain. They are misery.

They are the purest comfort we can have in the time of the year when not only the skies are grey, but also our souls.

This one is going onto my vinyl buy list. It will sound so glorious coming out of the stereo.

Release: 2/16/18
Genre: Doom/Death Metal
Label: Dark Descent Records
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