Elend is the name of an Austro-French band formed in 1993 by composers and multi-instrumentalists Iskandar Hasnawi and Renaud Tschirner. The band's name is German for "misery." The music can be described as gothic and orchestral music with post-romanticism undertones, or simply Violent Neoclassical. They are often classed as a metal act due to the fact that in their earlier days, they were signed to a label that released metal music almost exclusively. In actuality, though their sound has sometimes been very violent, they have never been metal of any form.