DJ & Music Writer from the UK

Covenant – A Listener’s Guide

Covenant Live

Covenant Live isn’t that far removed from Covenant in the studio. There isn’t much that can be done to “value-add” to sounds that are the result of electronic trickery with little relation to ‘real’ instruments, but that hasn’t stopped them trying. They’ve toured and played major festivals even when there wasn’t a new album to support, and on a couple of occasions released recordings in both audio and visual form.

Covenant - Synergy Live in Europe (Cover)

The first attempt at a Covenant Live Album was Synergy: Live In Europe. This dates from their ‘United States of Mind’ tour, containing tracks from that and the two albums previous. Other than Eskil’s embellishments, some extensions and some additional noises, the tracks don’t vary much from the albums. The tracklist does omit key tunes like “Theremin” and “Figurehead” in favour of more obscure album cuts, though these songs DO appear on the VHS tape included in the boxset version, along with a few backstage comments between the songs. But this is 2018 and who out there has still got a VCR?

Covenant - In Transit (Cover)

A better bet is the 2006 DVD+CD set In Transit. This captures the last tour featuring the original trio, included plenty of off-duty moments between the shows, various extras and a 5.1 sound mix (not a given on live DVDs at the time). The video quality is substantially advanced from the Synergy video, with the light show really adding to the experience rather than blurring all the details. Though whether it was wise to include a take of “Invisible and Silent” that features Eskil completely fluffing the first verse is open to debate. He’s been known to do such things from time to time but sticking it on the DVD? I don’t get it.

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