Anaal Nathrakh was created for one purpose - to be the soundtrack for Armageddon, the audial essence of evil, hatred and violence, the true spirit of necro taken to its musical extremes. Since being founded in Birmingham in 1998, the band has gained a reputation for embodying precisely these things, with a history including not only the release of seven albums and an EP to rapturous acclaim, but collaborations with such legendary figures as Attila Csihar (Mayhem), Shane Embury and Danny Herrera (Napalm Death), Nick Barker (Testament, Dimmu Borgir), Joe Horvath (Circle Of Dead Children), Sethlans Teitan (Watain) and so on. This, alongside appearing on BBC Radio 1 at the personal behest of sadly missed icon John Peel, headlining a stage at the renowned cult Inferno Festival in Norway as their debut international live appearance, countless placings in 'best album of the year' polls and album of the month awards in the press and cover appearances on leading magazines such as Terrorizer... Anaal Nathrakh's status as one of the leading lights in extreme metal is undeniable. Hallmarked by breathtaking musical ferocity, inventiveness and breadth, married with a mercurial, intensely misanthropic and sharp intelligence, Anaal Nathrakh's sound is imbued with a palpable sense of menace that is virtually unmatched in metal. For 2011, the band present the digested and re-vomited results of an 18-month journey through slings, arrows and outrageous misfortune. Intended in the most scourging sense of the word, Passion is an encoded vision of agony; desolation taken as the inspiration for incalculable rage. This is only abetted by contributions of twisted misanthropy from Rainer Landfermann (Pavor, Bethlehem), Alan Dubin (Khanate, Gnaw, etc) and the utter blackness of Gnaw Their Tongues. Glorying in their pyrrhic epiphanies, Anaal Nathrakh have developed a deeper understanding of horror and Passion is the focused, distilled and above all bleakly triumphant result.
