VNV Nation

Few acts in electronic music have built a career on a single motto, yet VNV Nation has done just that. Ronan Harris, raised in Dublin and later based in Hamburg, shaped the project from a London-formed electronic venture called Nation into a group that blends industrial rhythms with synthesizer melodies and orchestral touches. Their sound draws on the EBM of Nitzer Ebb and Front 242, though its melodic lines grew more pronounced over time.

Their debut, Advance and Follow, appeared in 1995, though Harris later treated it as a set of demos rather than a proper album, and it returned in 2001 as Advance and Follow 2.0 with bonus tracks including two Front 242 covers. Praise the Fallen followed in 1998, but the breakthrough came with Empires in 1999, which topped the German DAC chart for seven weeks. Futureperfect in 2002 pushed the sound towards trance and synthpop, and a 2001 to 2003 world tour yielded the Pastperfect DVD. Matter + Form in 2005 peaked at number one on the DAC albums chart, and Judgement arrived in April 2007.