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Anorexia Nervosa > Sodomizing the Archedangel > Reviews
Anorexia Nervosa - Sodomizing the Archedangel

Sodomizing the Archedangel - 66%

Spatupon, June 12th, 2018
Written based on this version: 1999, CD, Osmose Productions

Anorexia Nervosa has carved out quite an immense image and path for itself. This is mostly because of their highly-symphonic music and superb musicianship and overall cohesiveness of their sound. When you think of symphonic black metal or just French black metal in general, Anorexia Nervosa is a name which instantly comes to mind. Their magnum opus "New Obscurantis Order" produced such timeless symphonic black metal classics such as "Mother Anorexia" and "Stabat Matter Dolorosa". However, that album came out much later than this short EP which clocks in at over 17 minutes. Don't get me wrong, the whole trappings associated with Anorexia Nervosa are all present and overwhelming on this mini-album. This EP could definitely become an instant favorite among those who appreciate works such as Midian-era Cradle of Filth and Hecate Enthroned, because their music is highly evocative of the style these bands have approached at some point in their career.

Let me officially start this review by pointing out the positive factors of this album. This offering instantly starts out with a blasting track entitled "Divine White Light Of A Cumming Decadence" which starts out deceivingly slow and then instantly turns into a maniacal delivery of frantic singing, drumming and tremolo picking. This song largely sets the tone and prepares the listener for what is about to come. The vocals employed by Hreidmarr on this EP are as strong and as over-bearing as ever. His high pitched shrieks combined with some pretty mid-level to low pitched screams give the vocals a multi-faceted character which in turn makes this whole section of the music all the more interesting. The mentally-troubled style employed in the major part of the last song entitled "A Caress of Flesh & Vomited Romance" continues to build upon the strong foundation which the singers' vocal performance lay throughout the entire mini-lp to finally reach the climax in this song. The bass is audible enough in order to differentiate it from the rest of the instrumentation. This I suppose, must have been quite a challenging to do, due to the overbearing presence of orchestration which dominates the entire landscape of the EP.

This brings me towards my qualms about this EP and my problem with Anorexia Nervosa in general. I can't stand the overbearing orchestration which takes precedence over all other instruments in the release. If you look at each instrument individually, you won't really find any groundbreaking guitar riffs; you'll probably hear a few dozen interesting drumming fills which can lose their individuality by the constant blast-beats which the drummer seems to enjoy to employ; the bass doesn't really have its own authentic identity for it largely follows exactly what the guitars do. That's not really a problem in and of itself, but when the bass is mixed to be on par with the guitars, in this case, it just fails to captivate the listener. Overall, I believe that Anorexia Nervosa have always been especially liberal in their employment of orchestration, mostly because they want to evoke a sense of grandeur, However, in this case, the orchestration, rather than actually carve out a picture of immensity and richness, it just gets me so damn bored. The orchestration doesn't manage to hold itself up and crumbles under its own weight.

The cover-art of this EP doesn't really say much or do much. It's ineffective and seems like a rished attempt with no concept behind it whatsoever.. The almost-condescending song titles deseved to be accompanied by an equally condescending art-work, but alas, the cover art is just asinine and as I've explained seems to be largely vapid and nonsensical. The production on this EP is pretty clear, however, due to the intense and frantic nature of the orchestration, all the other instruments throughout most of the record seem to take the back-seat and are largely there for the simple reason that this EP is a metal record not a simple classical record. I'm pretty sure most symphonic black metal fans will drool listening to this album, however for me it seemed like a rushed attempt and an excuse to put out some filler material to bridge the gap between their first and second full offerings.