Original Das Testament album art

After three highly successful albums, one remix album, one Best Of compilation, ten singles, a barrage of club dance hits, and even a DVD, Germany's E Nomine has wordlessly faded into the ether.

"Vater Unser" is the dance hit that started everything in 1999  and it has everything. Solid bass kicks, a wicked synth line, choirs chanting Latin, and the German Robert DeNiro reciting the Lord's Prayer auf deutsch. That last part may require some explanation.

Christian Weller and Friedrich Graner, the masterminds behind E Nomine, describe their music as "monumental dance." They combine heavy beats with choral singing for all their songs and then employ the voicework of German synchronis-speakers, voice actors who dub over American films for release in Germany.

Michael Cretu and David Fairstein may have been the first to experiment with Gregorian chant melded to techno, as in Enigma's 1990 release MCMXC a.D., but E Nomine took this idea in a completely different direction. To chant, E Nomine added the synchronis speakers, and most of this voice work is unsung, spoken word.

Their first album, 1999's Das Testament, is a collection of biblical songs. The Lord's Prayer in "Vater Unser," Psalm 23 in none other than "Psalm 23," and the self-evident "Ave Maria" are three of the most prominent tracks. Synchronis speakers including the German actors for Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, and Nicolas Cage recite the lyrics, but in no way just read them with their expertise, the songs unfold like dramatic scenes.

2002's Finsternis

2002 saw the follow-up release of Finsternis (or Darkness in English). Completely abandoning the religious themes of the previous album, Finsternis turns to vampires, witches, and werewolves for its subject matter. "Draculs Bluthochzeit" is expertly voiced by Gary Oldman's German counterpart; it is an introduction to guests by Count Dracula himself welcoming them into his castle and to his "blood wedding." "Die Schwarzen Reiter," for those familiar with the German poet Goethe, pays tribute with an allusion to his poem "Erlkönig" and some similar imagery. Also of note for this album is the increase in production value. Finsternis features more synchronis speakers, more complex song structures, and even some live instruments (although many seem to be only short, repeated samples).

2003's Die Prophezeiung

E Nomine's next release, Die Prophezeiung (The Prophecy), was released in 2003 in two formats: the original version in the typical monumental dance style, and the Klassik Edition, a fully-remixed version set to a sweeping orchestra rather than synthesized techno. The themes of this CD start with an archetypical battle between good and evil, light and dark. A recurring utterance on the disc is, "Die Prophezeing wird wahrheit werden," or, "The prophecy will come true." The first-time use of solo female vocalists adds a haunting facet and a sometimes wrenching lament -- listen to "Espiritu del Aire" on the Klassik Edition and just try not to be moved, whether you understand her Spanish or not (this also marks the first use of Spanish on a main album track).

After this masterful accomplishment (from which another onslaught of singles originated), Universal released in 2004 Das Beste Aus... Gottes Beitrag und Teufels Werk (The Best of... God's Contribution and the Devil's Work). Among the twenty tracks included, fifteen had already been released on the full-length albums, and the remaining five were a mix of new songs and songs formerly available only as bonus tracks with previous single releases. A remix of "Schwarze Sonne" appeared with vocals from Ralf Moeller (American audiences know him from Gladiator and Beerfest); this version even hit the German rock charts and had its own video filmed, also starring Moeller.

With such success, one might wonder how the project could ever collapse. It was around this time, however, that it did begin to unravel inexplicably.

Work was supposedly underway for a new album, and its first single, Heilig, was slated for a December 2007 release. As the date neared, apparent problems with a publisher held up shipment of a hard-copy of the CD. The date was then pushed back to February 2008. As even this date neared, no copies were shipped. The song "Heilig" then became available only as a digital download. This was the last official release from E Nomine.

E Nomine's former website (http://www.enomine-germany.de) hadn't been updated since 2005, and now, no longer exists. Universal's German website doesn't even host a bio on the band and barely acknowledges its existence. Even German fans on Amazon.de express their confusion at what has happened. No one anywhere seems to have an answer.

With the disappearance of the true E Nomine, some questionable (and unquestionable) bootlegs have appeared. The album Das Dunkle Element (The Dark Element) began appearing on peer-to-peer filesharing sites sometime in the last twelve months; it is a collection of hard-to-find E Nomine tracks, including "Heilig" and a number of other tracks that were only released on singles. This is definitely a fan-made compilation, with all tracks traceable to previous legitimate releases. No new content or mixing is present. As for the material that is only questionable, video of a purported E Nomine concert also began appearing on the internet. The performance features a live rendition of "Heilig" with pyrotechnics and choreography, as well as the never-before-heard song "Excalibur." The production value seems too high to be a hoax.

As for the true end or the current state of E Nomine, Weller and Graner are likely the only people who hold all the pieces to the puzzle. With such an overwhelming career spanning almost a decade, it is perplexing to think that E Nomine has simply disappeared, but at this point, even the slightest sign of life or halfway-definitive obituary would be a much welcome monument in this music lover's life.