Subscribe to my YouTube channel right here!

I was not familiar with fromjoy prior to coming across their new Ataraxia EP, and now my listening history is littered with fromjoy, largely due to this new EP being played ad nauseum. Ataraxia, or Ataraxia 19.13.8.1.19 if you want to use the EP’s full name, feels like an impressionist painting rendered in PS2 graphics. It lives entirely in this digital space, but there’s something oddly emotional lurking behind the polygons and jagged edges of the music. It’s synthetic, but it’s never sterile — it’s a really interesting journey to take.

Musically, this feels like a bizarre and beautiful fusion of Deftones atmosphere, Vildhjarta dissonance, Periphery‘s tech-laced melodicism and downtempo interludes, and even a splash of ’90s new age relaxation beats, all filtered through the lens of modern deathcore and metalcore aggression. It’s hazy, it’s immersive, and it’s strangely meditative despite the sonic violence happening just underneath the surface for a lot of this EP.

Ataraxia opens with “Etana,” which on its surface is just 20 seconds of saxophone and drums being slowly warped into a wash of digital noise. Which is cool enough on its own, but it’s even cooler when you realize that it’s actually a snippet of the song “Icarus,” the closer from fromjoy‘s 2023 self-titled record. Still, you shouldn’t expect a direct continuation of that release — that’s not really what I’m getting from this intro track.
This is less of a bridge between records and more of a declaration that the fromjoy you’re about to hear in 2025 is definitely different than the one in 2023, but they’re certainly aware of their past and they’re going to incorporate it despite having a lot of new sounds on this EP.

“Monochrome” picks up right where “Etana” left off, blending warped electronic textures that wouldn’t feel out of place on Thrice‘s Water Alchemy Index with what sounds like every effect from Stephen Carpenter‘s “Prayers/Triangles” guitar tone loaded onto a keyboard — and this is all happening beneath some very heavily vocoded vocals. So again, you’re getting the digital realm mixed with this kind of human-ish music. It’s very cool.

Then everything drops out, and fromjoy masterfully reintroduces the track with some extremely groovy acoustic drums and background screams, layered beneath the same sonic elements first introduced in the opener, so everything has now come together. The track dips into silence a second and third time, and then when it comes back, each return feels a little more organic, a little heavier. And by the end, you’re greeted with some seriously bendy, Vildhjarta-esque riffs and rhythms.

Yet it never reads as a call to violence or a cue to headbang or kind of a mosh call or anything like that. This feels like a very controlled descent, not into chaos, but into quieter, deeper, more contemplative waters — away from the noise, or at least the kind of noise that the intro originally promised. You’re on a really different journey than you think you might be on. But again, fromjoy knows what they’re doing and their writing is very good, so they’re taking you somewhere unexpected, but at the same time, it feels very welcome. It feels very logical.

If “Monochrome” is you kind of sinking into these deeper waters, then “Eternal Harvest” is where things get a little grimmer, a little darker. You’re starting to feel that pressure. A sharp four-count on the snare launches you into a whirlwind of blast beats and screams and double bass and chugging chords, and the storm dies down briefly with a clean chorus near the tail end of the song.

But just as you’re catching your breath, fromjoy veers sharply into this glitchy, hyper-pop–inflected section that quickly melts back into the chaos that came before, now repeated with even more urgency. So it’s dark and then dancey and then darker. Very cool. fromjoy also tosses a pretty hefty breakdown at you in the second half of the song, though they manage to speed things up at the same tempo while still keeping that sort of plodding energy. Then there’s one final meaty riff that circles back with the opening synth textures and you’re left suspended in a total digital darkness.

And then finally there’s the closing title track. It kicks off with a bouncy groove layered beneath more of those digital skyline-sounding synths. fromjoy brings back the clean vocals on this one, and some Final Fantasy–esque piano runs, and of course a few hefty breakdowns for good measure.

But then it all collapses into this gargantuan ambience section, and I really, really love that. The ambience section feels like a callback to the intro of “Monochrome,” but with some distinctly Jake Bowen–style electronic atmosphere and an Enigma-flavored drum beat. Except louder and distorted and definitely not what Enigma‘s Michael Cretu would have done, but that’s what makes it work. And this ambience section isn’t just a brief interlude either — fromjoy leans all the way into it, letting the mood evolve with quieter moments and new chord progressions that shift the emotional texture of the song one final time.

And then there’s one last deeply satisfying heavy part that crashes through at the end before everything dissolves into a final wash of noise. And that’s about the time that I hit repeat all on Apple Music and then sat through this EP another like six or seven times in a row.

I am genuinely impressed with fromjoy on this EP. It’s unlike anything they’ve ever done, especially in terms of how spacious it feels and how heavily they lean into electronic elements. And honestly, I can’t really point to a single moment on this release that feels unnecessary. This is 16 minutes of music that feels completely cohesive, centered around a handful of recurring themes that the band reinterprets and reintroduces in very compelling ways, and it’s just written really, really well. Again, 16 minutes and I really cannot tell you one single instance of a moment where I thought, oh, this is going on too long or why is this here?

It’s just really good. And what’s even more striking is how much fromjoy achieves with so few elements. This isn’t just low tunings for the heavy parts and synths for the soft stuff and all the obvious choices that you might make. Instead, everything swirls together in a fragmented digital space — parts pushing and pulling at one another, shifting the environment around you while keeping you locked in place. You’re frozen in stasis. You’re just kind of watching everything fall apart around you, but you yourself are fine… until there’s nothing left. And what do you do then?

Ataraxia is a 9 out of 10 for me. fromjoy has crafted something truly unique and compelling in a remarkably short runtime and they’ve done it without overstaying their welcome or falling back on tired genre tropes. That probably shouldn’t come as a surprise given the strength of their 2023 self-titled album, which I also suggest you check out. But this is different.

It’s exciting. fromjoy is clearly on a creative tear. They’re riding a straight-line upward trajectory and I can’t wait to hear what they do next. Assuming I can tear myself away from this EP long enough to actually notice or listen to it.