Anorexia Nervosa (band)

Anorexia Nervosa
Anorexia Nervosa performing live on tour with Vader in Poland, on 11 September 2005
Background information
Also known as	Necromancia (1991-95)
Origin	Limoges, France
Genres	Symphonic black metal, industrial metal (early), death metal (early)
Years active	1991–2005 (on hold)
Labels	Season of Mist, Osmose, Listenable
Website	myspace.com/motheranorexia
Members	Stéphane Bayle Nilcas Vant Pierre Couquet Neb Xort
Past members	Rose Hreidmarr Mark Zabé Stéphane Gerbaud

Anorexia Nervosa is a French symphonic black metal band from Limoges, France, formed in 1991. They are currently "on hold" due to the departure of vocalist RMS Hreidmarr.

Anorexia Nervosa (full name Anorexia Nervosa the Nihilistic Orchestra) was formed in 1991 as Necromancia, with a line-up consisting of Stéphane Bayle (guitar), Marc Zabé (guitar), Pierre Couquet (bass), Nilcas Vant (drums) and Stéphane Gerbaud (vocals). As Necromancia they produced a demo in 1993, The Garden of Delight. A second demo, Nihil Negativum, gave Anorexia Nervosa its place in the underground world. The demo featured the dark, industrial atmosphere that their album Exile was later known for. During a concert in the south of France, Michael Berberian, from Season of Mist Records, noticed the band and offered them a contract for an album. Exile, was released in 1997. Reminiscent of their previous work, Nihil Negativum, Exile had an eerily industrial sound to it. Not only was the album unique in the history of the band, but in the entire black metal genre itself. Twenty-four hundred copies of the album were sold, allowing access to a larger audience and onto a series of concerts with Cradle of Filth, Absu, Misanthrope, amongst others.

They left the label after the release of Exile, and replaced Gerbaud and Zabé with new singer RMS Hreidmarr and keyboardist Neb Xort. They then pursued a new, self-described "dark nihilistic metal" direction featuring a very fast, hysterical and powerfully orchestrated sound, with second album Sodomizing the Archangel, recorded at the band's own Drudenhaus Studio and released by Osmose Productions in 1999. They followed this with the Drudenhaus album, which was released in March 2000, and proved to be a huge success for the band.

Further evolving the style was their 2001 release, New Obscurantis Order, which proved to be their most groundbreaking release to date, involving even faster tempos, more polished orchestrations and an all-around more violent sound. They toured all over Europe with the likes of Cradle of Filth, and Rotting Christ, by now an established symphonic black metal band. Anorexia Nervosa then went on hiatus for three years, returning with a new album, Redemption Process in 2004, now on Listenable Records.