Sodomizing the Archedangel

For almost 20 years, Anorexia Nervosa has gotten a lot of attention from me and many of their songs show up in the "most frequently played" metrics in whatever media software I'm using, especially the fantastic "Drudenhaus" album. Admittedly, though, I knew very little about their preceding EP "Sodomizing the Archedangel" for a long time. They had a sample of "Blood & Latex Terrortech War" on their website back in like 2005, but beyond that, I wasn't familiar with anything else on this release. I kicked myself a little bit for waiting so long to listen to all the tracks on "Sodomizing the Archedangel" because it set a foundation for what made subsequent albums so great.

Anorexia Nervosa's two best attributes are 1) Hreidmarr's powerful range which add a lot of color and vibrancy to the frantic, depraved, and aggressive style of the music and 2) that synthesized aggressive orchestra that acts as the foundation for most of their tracks (in some cases, the sound effect is highly reminiscent of the tremolo-picking frequently done in black metal). Those two attributes are indeed present on "Sodomizing the Archedangel", albeit the production is a little weaker so you need a good sound system to capture what might get buried.

Kicking off the EP is an earlier version of "Divine White Light of a Cumming Decadence", which is also a track on the "Drudenhaus" album. Unlike the latter, there's an incredible orchestra-only introduction which easily paints the picture that this short album will move fast. These thirty seconds alone give me a feeling of tension and vibes of dangerous behavior. This could've easily made its way into a movie like "A Clockwork Orange". Then of course the rest of the song captures a well balanced marriage between Hreidmarr's aggressive vocals (to boot, he's really good at switching from French to English - that's quite an underrated skill) the riffs. This is one of those few cases where you can go with either version of this track - one doesn't make the other obsolete.

"Excreted Communion Under Khaos Zero" has an introduction that juxtaposes the somber feel of violins with a more upbeat pacing which builds into one of the most catchy Anorexia Nervosa songs. The vocals, drums, and guitars are in full lockstep to create a truly oppressive piece of music. In some ways, the approach feels similar to Count Nosferatu Kommando but the melodic guitars chiming in occasionally do enough to set this piece apart from anything Anorexia Nervosa has done in other releases or any band members' side projects.

"A Caress of Flesh & Vomited Romance" is the one track where the riffs and guitar melodies outrank the keyboards just a little bit. Once again, Hreidmarr shines again, with sorrowful vocals aligning well to the sorrowful guitar melodies. That leaves just mentioning "Blood & Latex Terrortech War", which is probably the most "average" of all the tracks here, which has a fairly consistent tempo and well balanced mix of keyboards and guitars. It's probably the most accessible for fans of Cradle of Filth and Hecate Enthroned looking to branch out into something new.

The one thing I'd call out is that the weaker production has an impact on the how the vocals sound. When all instruments are playing (figure the middle of something like "Divine White Light of a Cumming Decadence"), the vocals do get drowned out and what you're left with is something similar to early Hecate Enthroned - very high pitched screeching vocals that can't be translated easily. This is fairly rare on the album though because there are plenty of sections where the keyboards don't come in as strong, which prevents things from being drowned out. Luckily, they fix this slight issue on the subsequent "Drudenhaus" album.

Overall, though, "Sodomizing the Archedangel" is a great example of more orchestra-focused symphonic black metal. Despite being only four tracks and seventeen minutes long, there's a ton of variety here and the album goes fairly quick. In some ways, I do wish it was a little longer, but it's a good appetizer to snack on before the main course comes. Anorexia Nervosa had minimal experience with symphonic black metal when this came out, but despite that, they've shown they can still make that mark in the genre.

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.