VNV Nation is an EBM/synthpop/futurepop musical group from London, England. Made up of Ronan Harris and Mark Jackson, they released their first album, Advance and Follow, in 1995. This was a mixture of danceable synthesizer melodies and harsh electronic beats firmly in the tradition of middle-era EBM, supplemented with elements of orchestral music. Their next release, 1998's Praise the Fallen, continued largely in this vein, and began to enjoy a larger degree of commercial success. In many respects, 1999's Empires was their breakthrough album, gaining them widespread commercial success (topping the German DAC charts for seven weeks) and almost single-handedly spawning a genre of similar artists. While in the vein of their previous two works, Empires expanded the bombastic synthesizer lines and incorporated tighter song organization with verses and catchy choruses. Their most recent album, 2002's Futureperfect, represented a departure in many ways, largely away from EBM and towards futurepop, even incorporating some elements of trance (though some songs are still unmistakably EBM). This shift caused their mainstream popularity to increase still further, but alienated some of their fans who preferred their earlier harsher and darker sound, leading to a somewhat weakened reputation "underground" community. Nonetheless, they embarked on several highly successful world tours in 2002 and 2003, including to the United States, where this genre of music does not normally enjoy much commercial success.
