New Obscurantis Order
(Osmose Productions)
49:00min
For one reason or another I didn’t care to follow the career of the French five piece ANOREXIA NERVOSA, so I can’t really comment on their previous releases here. But their newest offering, “New Obscurantis Order” at least managed to catch my attention now. Well, quite frankly speaking, I didn’t really expect anything, but got a furious symphonic Black Metal outburst in return, which is indeed far more than I was hoping for. The band quite obviously feels very comfortable among the likes of vintage EMPEROR (not reaching their brilliance of course) and knows how to compose effective intensity with an overall classy inspired dark symphonic approach. Not necessarily original anymore nowadays, but at least very well executed. And they also did a very good job on their CANDLEMASS cover ‘Solitude’. The limited digipak and vinyl version of the album is supposed to have two additional cover tunes by JUDAS PRIEST and DEATH, which I unfortunately can’t comment on here as they weren’t included on the promo copy. But the album is strong enough on its own already, so don’t make a similar mistake as I did – check them out and make up your own mind. You might be surprised!
Frank Stöver