After the completion of ‘Officium Tenebrarum’ trilogy it remained quiet around Elend for a relatively long time, until last year ‘Winds Devouring Men’ saw the light of day, a album somewhat lighter of character, with soft strings and exotic elements next to industrial sounding noises inspired by the French musique concrete of for instance Poerre Schaeffer or Poerre Henry, in which natural and industrial sounds are taped, cut up and editted again to form a new musical reality. With this cd Elend releases it’s second in a cyclus of 5 cd’s to be released and thematically this album goes further where ‘Winds Devouring Men’ ended in combining personal themes with the ancient Greek classics. ‘Sunwar the Dead’ is a furious album, with large orchestration and experiment in which inspiration is sought in the techniques and reformations of 20th century classical music, like influences of Penderecki, Stockhausen or Henry show us. This sounds ambitious and this it is, but when it’s well done one could simply classify this as magnificent. And this is what it is with ‘Sunwar the Dead’. A classical ensemble and choir of 50 musicians is used to create the force and complexity as heard on ‘Sunwar the Dead’. The vocals remind of Brendan Perry of Dead Can Dance, but musically Elend is much more disturbing and could better be compared to Rosa Crux. This cd is a next step in the ongoing successtory of this French band.