Covenant. It's a name that implies extraordinary commitment, a certain grandiosity, and a bond stronger than blood. As a name, Covenant—with its biblical overtones—was perhaps a bit ambitious for an upstart band of teenagers from southern Sweden armed with rudimentary electronics, but it ended up being extraordinarily fitting. Whether or not life subsequently imitated art or art subsequently imitated life is debatable, either way the band's moniker ended up perfectly summing up the vision, grandeur, and brotherhood that is the band itself.

CovenantBeginning, as most bands do, as teenagers fiddling with instruments in their parents' basement, the earliest incarnations of the band featured, astoundingly, six members. Over time the line-up trimmed down to a cast of three: vocalist and songwriter Eskil Simonsson, keyboardist and lyricist Joakim Montelius, and keyboardist Clas Nachmanson. Their first song written as the contemporary incarnation of Covenant was "Replicant", a track which, Simonsson notes, was such a quantum leap forward for the band that he was certain it would be the last one he'd ever write. Little did he know, a deal with Swedish label Memento Materia and an entire album's worth of material would soon follow. That album would be Covenant's first release, Dreams of a Cryotank, which would spawn an important early club hit for the band, "Theremin", a track which can still be heard on dancefloors today