With:	Hreidmarr
Conducted by:	Undercraft
Published:	04.02.2004
Band profile:	Anorexia Nervosa
Album info:	New Obscurantis Order

01. Mother Anorexia
02. Chatiment De La Rose
03. Black Death, Nonetheless
04. Stabat Mater Dolorosa
05. Le Portail De La Vierge
06. The Altar Of Holocausts
07. Hail Tyranny [Sergei Rachmaninov cover]
08. Ordo Ab Chao: The Scarlet Communion
09. Solitude [Candlemass cover]
10. Metal Meltdown [Judas Priest cover] [bonus]

01. Mother Anorexia:
The opening song. Quite simple, short and very efficient. We wanted to make a song which would be pretty representative of what Anorexia Nervosa is. We see it as a kind of hymn, with killer verses, hysterical guitar-soloing and an outstanding symphonic break in the middle of the song. The lyrics are also pretty simple, with simple sentences, but the meaning is very deep and strong. It's simply a digest of the band's concept and state of mind, that's why we use the band's name in this song... In this song it becomes " Mother Anorexia ", an out of time, mystical entity surrounding us. An anti-matter god, in a way... Nevertheless, there are also in this song some other hidden symbols, just as it is in all our songs. We don't like explicit things...

02. Chatiment de la Rose:
A very personal song... In English it means " The Rose's Punishment ". It 's a song based on the atmospheres, it's very fast, yet it has got some heavy melodic guitar parts, and deeply orchestral keyboards. I like very much the melodic break sung in French in the middle of the song, I've improved a lot my clean vocals, and the result is pretty amazing and original. We've chosen this song to appear on magazine's samplers and on compilations (will be featured on World Domination IV), because it's the song of the album which is maybe the most within the reach of everyone... The lyrics are about a very dark period I've been through some months ago, and about two persons, maybe three, I don't really know (laughs), I don't really have the distance yet to talk about that, but it's full of hatred, that's sure...

03. Black Death, Nonetheless:
One of the most brutal songs on the album. It comes with aggressive guitar riffs, and very martial, Wagner-like keyboards. For the first time we used instruments like brass, trumpet, etc, and the result is deeply powerful ! Lyrically, it's a violent attack against our modern world ant its values with some Gnostic allusions. The Black Death is a symbolic sickness, the evil which is eating away at the world. And maybe we are this sickness, destroying this world from inside...

04. Stabat Mater Dolorosa:
Certainly my fave one... It's a long epic and mystical song. Maybe it's one of the most ambitious and complex we've ever done. It's very fast, violent, with rather hysterical vocals, and at the same time it's really heavy and powerful, with a lot of double bass-drum parts and Death-Metal influenced guitar riffs. The song begins with some dark and solemn choirs, done by two female singers from a dark-ambient French band called Olen'K. We love their so personal, special voices, and we're really glad to have them on the album. They also appear on the chorus of this song... "Stabat Mater Dolorosa" is originally a Christian prayer, which has been used by many classical authors, like Mozart, for example. We wanted to make our own "Stabat Mater Dolorosa". And our version is of course pretty different from the others, we have another approach of this myth. We adapted it to our own vision of life. So, Mater Dolorosa became the sign of what Christians would call the Apokalypse. An out of time woman, with humans' blood and sins trickling down on her perfect body, bringing a deadly redemption to this rotten world. She's our bride and our holy mother.

05. Le Portail de la Vierge:
A typical Anorexia Nervosa song, pretty fast and with strong tragical atmospheres... It begins with a soft, melancholic piano and strings part, a kind of " calm before the storm ", because it immediately turns into an outburst of blast-beats and wild guitar riffs. The vocals, rather haunting and insistent, stick to the music. The chorus is sung in French, and it's a very dramatic and romantic one, with amazing clean vocals. I like very much the end of this track, it's deeply heavy and haunting. Lyrically, it's a song about betrayal and the struggle between the mortal frame and the spirit...

06. The Altar of Holocausts:
Certainly the most brutal song of the album. It marks the beginning of the album's third and last part. The bass / guitar rhythmic is very powerful and aggressive, and there are obsessive strange strings in the background. The atmosphere of this song is rather fraught... I like it, it's a quite unusual track for us. The mid-tempo part in the middle reminds me of Bathory, it's very epic, with distant voices... A fucking good hateful and hysterical song !

07. Hail Tyranny:
An instrumental one, only piano, played by Xort, our keyboardist. It's a highly personal adaptation of a Sergeï Rachmaninov's prelude. Xort was used to play it during rehearsals, and we all found it great. It's something very technical and simply beautiful. A perfect prelude to the album's " grand final "... The atmosphere of this track is very particular. Twisted.

08. Ordo ab Chao: The Scarlet Communion:
The closing chapter. A long, epic and heavy song, with a lot of warlike parts and some good guitar-soloing. We worked very much on this one, it's the last song we composed for the album, the most recent, and this is one of my faves. It's quite technical, with a lot of tempo changes, etc. I like very much the chorus, very strong and emphatic, with these hammering words : " Vengeance is mine, Murder is wine, Purification through the forever more "... This song deals with visions of destruction, war, human redemption through purifying hatred. It's a perfect song to end the album.

09. Solitude:
This is a cover of Candlemass. The original version of this song appears on the first Candlemass album called " Epicus Doomicus Metallicus ". This album is for us one of the best Metal release ever, and especially this song. We all love it in the band, you know, Stefan and Nilcas were already covering this song with their first band, Beyond, back in 1989... So, we finally recorded it, also because we thought the atmosphere of this song did suit the album perfectly, even if it's a very slow, doom song. And I'm very proud of our version, darker than hell (laughs) ! ! ! This one appears only on the digipack limited edition, and on the limited LP.