These French gentlemen have been around for a while now, probably 7 or 8 years, and with each album they continue to evolve and mature offering good albums; with this one, their fourth full-length they prove what they’re capable of doing.

Anorexia Nervosa’s music could be described as modern Black Metal with some great symphonic arrangements with a very elegant touch; the song structures are good although at some times a little bit more of variation would have made them more impressive; and the musicianship is actually quite good.

The guitars play some very good melodic riffs, and in general they’re quite solid, my only complaint is that there are moments in which they get a bit dull and boring; I understand that it’s difficult to find moments in which good guitar can be played without disrupting the flow of the song, but I guess that’s what distinguishes the amazing bands from the good ones. As for the bass guitar there’s nothing special with it; but then again, it’s hard to find good bass in Black Metal these days. Nilcas Vant does a very good job with the drums; I mean, it’s not the best drum work you’ll listen to but it succeeds in maintaining it fresh and varied through most part of the album. The grim vocals are average; I actually didn’t like them a lot, as for the clean ones I kind of enjoyed them, especially because most of the lines sung with clean vocals are in French; I’ve always felt that French is such an elegant language, so I feel that these lyrics add even more elegance to Anorexia Nervosa’s sound.

The definitive highlight of the album has to be Neb Xort, whose keyboards and synth arrangements are excellent. The band’s elegant sound is accomplished because of these arrangements and that is what makes the band shine. Great taste Mr. Xort!

Even though this album is very good the band still has to improve song structures and technique; I think that if Anorexia Nervosa concentrates on this and they do an emphasis on the elegance of their music, which is something I like quite a lot, especially because there aren’t a lot of good modern Black Metal bands with an elegant sound this days; they could become one of the best on the vein.

In general I could recommend this album to everyone who likes the a little bit more extreme side of Metal; also if you would like to get into the world of extreme Metal, this could be a good place to start. Anyone who has enjoyed the latest efforts by Cradle of Filth, Old Man’s Child, Dimmu Borgir or any band in that vein, will sure like this one a lot; it’s a very good Symphonic Black Metal album, just don’t expect this album to be a Death Cult Armageddon part 2, because although Anorexia Nervosa released a great album, they still aren’t as good as the Norwegian kings.

You might feel that the score is a bit low, but with the rhythm the Metal world has these days, I feel they deserve it. Year by year Metal evolves, and it gets better and better; Dimmu Borgir released last year a symphonic Black Metal masterpiece, and this album, even though great, couldn’t get close to it. Too exigent? Maybe; but with the quality the music has these days I’m sure we can demand a lot from bands; specially the ones with such a great potential like Anorexia Nervosa.

Note: The album has a very nice artwork with some very nice pictures; the version reviewed was a digipack version which includes a cover of the famous French Pop group Indochine of the song Les Tzars which is far from being necessary.