Covenant - In Times Before the Light (1997)

Norwegian black metal group, Covenant was one of the first black metal bands I heard and absolutely loved back in the day. Originally I heard them through their silly, 'Animatronic' release, which was actually under the band name, 'The Kovenant,' but then I went back to the days before the special K and heard, 'Nexus Polaris' I was sold on the band. I got my hands on, 'In Times Before the Light' sometime back in 2000 and I remember it fucking terrifying me.

I don't know what it was about this album but nothing I had heard at that time had sounded as dark, evil and otherworldly sounding as this one - needless to say, I adored it.

'In Times Before the Light' was recorded in the autumn of '95, but wasn't released until 1997 due to the albums artwork mysteriously disappearing during shipment to the label, Mordgrimm Records. The duo of N. Blackheart & T. Blackheart (no relation, I'm sure) were both teenagers at the time of this albums release and like a lot of other Norwegian bands it shows that their first album was the most ambitious and creative output.

Musically Times is within the classic Norwegian Symphonic Black Metal style, although the actual feel of the whole thing is quite different from Dimmu Borgir, Gehenna, Emperor and what have ya. The first noticeable characteristic is that the overall volume is exceedingly loud, which incidently gives the drums a thundering blasting sound when N. Blackheart pounds away during the speedier songs and frankly I do enjoy albums where the drums are vibrant sounding.

The typical 90's Norwegian black metal buzzing guitar tone is put in effect here and while they are not as dynamic as far as volume is concerned, T. Blackheart does however sound excellent in his overall performance and the brief acoustics only enhance the sombre dark mood that many of these songs have. The bass guitar is not always audible but its present at times and when it does it carries that light ominous feel that good black metal bass work should have.

The synths are perhaps the finest aspect of this record as they are really all over the place; sometimes sounding cryptically foreboding, at other times folk-ish and even quite symphonic and beautiful in sound although generally with an underlining sense of melancholy too. N's vocal work is also quite admirable, in fact, just fantastic troll-ish raspy screams and occasional spoken words that fit entirely too well with the music on this album.

Probably my favorite song on the album is, 'Monarch Of The Mighty Darkness' since to me it just seems like everything that makes the Covenant special is here and this song especially just flows flawlessly. I'm also quite the fan of the heavily synth based, 'The Chasm,' likewise, 'Towards The Crown Of Nights' & 'Visions Of A Lost Kingdom' are black metal perfection to me. All in all though the album rarely falls short and at least for me defines excellence in 90's Norwegian black metal music.

After this album Covenant became something of a super band by adding various notable members to the band and recording a much more mainstream, but still quite kick ass album if I do say so. Unfortunately it was just mainstream enough for long running EBM band Covenant to catch wind of it and threaten the band with a lawsuit if they didn't change names. Even more regrettable the band didn't just change names, but they changed their musical direction towards the goth/electronic/EBM what have ya metal genre and... well, it sucked, hard. Of course naturally at some point they went back and re-recorded this album by adding lame techno bullshit and who even knows what else in some lame attempt to mimic their current slobbering fuckfest.

On the plus side the album eventually saw a true re-release through Head Not Found Records in 2007, which also contained the bands demo as a bonus, but the logo and artwork were changed. I'll just stick with my original pressing, thank ye very much.

In the end though this album will always hold a special place in my soul and as far as I'm concerned its surely one of the finest recordings from the early Norwegian black metal scene.