The Kovenant

Everything began in the Norwegian town of Hamar. The band was formed in 1992 by two 14-year-olds who took on the pseudonyms of Blackheart and Nagash. Two years later, once they got to know each other better and developed their songwriting craft, they recorded their first demo, From the Storm of Shadows. This material, alongside their second demo released a year later, piqued the interest of the Mordgrimm record label, through which they ended up releasing their debut album, In Times Before Light, which the guys made while working on their demos. The record came out at the perfect moment, just when the melodic & symphonic black metal exploded in popularity almost overnight. The record made a lot of buzz on the Norwegian scene,  which led to the band’s move to the already quite renowned Nuclear Blast. Then, Blackheart and Nagash went on to recruit four more members to join them (including Hellhammer from Mayhem) and recorded their most popular album to date, Nexus Polaris. But their success (e.g. receiving the Spellenmannprisen award) was overshadowed by legal troubles. The band had to change their name to its current iteration, i.e. The Kovenant, as there already was a Swedish band named Covenant. With the name change also came the change in music direction. The black metal element was discarded in favour of metal music with a strong electro-industrial bend. This is the convention the band has stuck with ever since.