ANOREXIA NERVOSA — Drudenhaus (review)

ANOREXIA NERVOSA — Drudenhaus album cover

Album · 2000 · Symphonic Black Metal

4/5 · 2013-04-08
Wilytank

(Originally posted by me to Encyclopaedia Metallum: The Metal Archives; http://www.metal-archives.com/)

France's Anorexia Nervosa are one of those more tolerable versions of a popular metal band that more people would like if certain elements were changed; in this case, Cradle of Filth. Anorexia Nervosa and Cradle of Filth share the bombastic symphonic extreme metal approach with lots of blastbeating and debauchery themed lyrics. What differences make AN more tolerable then? Well, the guitars are more prominent than the keyboards in the mix, the gothic elements are reduced, the black metal elements are much more dominant, there's no female singers, and the lead singer isn't Dani Filth (potentially a huge kicker for a lot of anti-Cradle people). Drudenhaus is the first album by Anorexia Nervosa I've listened to and though it isn't totally great, it still makes for a very entertaining listen.

Being more guitar focused helps Drudenhaus a lot. The production makes the whole mix sound loud, but the guitars' riffing sound really heavy as a result. The riffs are still easy to follow making a lot of the songs here catchy and memorable occasionally breaking into epic sounding leads like in "A Doleful Night in the Thelema". And I'm glad the guitars are given this much presence in a symphonic metal album because a big mistake a lot of bands of this genre make is lowering the volume of the guitars to make their keyboards more prominent while also writing really uninspired riffs. Anorexia Nervosa make neither mistake here on Drudenhaus.

That said, with the keys more of a background instrument, they largely don't do anything for Drudenhaus; they're just there. For the most part, they just add another layer of noise while the guitars do all the work. The exceptions are "The Drudenhaus Anthem", "Dirge and Requiem For My Sister Whore", "Das ist Zum erschiessen schön", and "The Red Achromance" where they do have a fitting presence while still allowing the guitars to have a prominent position. But on the other songs, they simply exist without really sounding great, though not totally awful either.

The mixture of loud riffs, keyboards furious blastbeats, and Nicolas Saint-Morand's vocals makes for a really bombastic sounding album. However, there is some control within all the songs with the slower sections that occur at least once per song. These sections are often the high point of the songs and without them this album would be a lot worse.

Drudenhaus isn't perfect, but it sure is damn fun to listen to which is a praise worthy quality in its own right. While it isn't the most groundbreaking black metal release, it's well put together and presents itself really nicely. Symphonic black metal fans will like it and it works really well as a Cradle of Filth substitute for those of you looking for one. Most of the good parts about them are present without most of the bad.

(88/100)