Crimson Moonlight was formed in June -97 by Gustav Elowsson, Petter Stenmarker and Simon Rosén. The band´s purpose was to create music in the true old school black metal vein, record a release a demo-tape and then later on play only one concert before splitting up the band. The only serious thing about Crimson Moonlight was the lyrics, dealing with different subjects concerning our Christian faith. Almost immediately bassist Alexander Orest joined, and the line-up was completed. The band thought about a name and the choice fell on “Crimson Moonlight”. A very simple website was created and very soon Crimson Moonlight became noticed within Swedish metal circles.
During a few days in July and August -97 the demo-tape “The glorification of the master of light” was recorded, and in September the same year it was released. The rumour about the band continued to be spread.
Time went on and all we thought about playing seriously with the band. All os us felt that this was not only a fun project but something that definitely could develop to be a very serious project. We decided to break the silence embracing the band and try to form a full band, and in didn’t take long before we found two new members in Jonathan Jansson and Simon “Ziimp” Lind, which both had played together with Petter in a death metal-band called Obsecration. Alexander left the bass playing behind to concentrate on the keyboards, a few rehearsals took place, and on April 3rd -98 Crimson Moonlight performed the first show ever.
After this we started to write more songs, and it didn’t take long before we got our first opportunity to play outside Sweden. In July -98 we played at the DP-festival outside Oslo, Norway. At this time we had began to change the style of tmusic, from a very primitive black metal sound to a more symphonic sound and the band decided to record a demo-CD. In the shift of July/August -98 the “Eternal Emperor” MCD was recorded in Kalmar and was printed in 1000 copies which today are sold out.
In the beginning of summer -99 Simon “Ziimp” Lindh left the band and was replaced by David Seiving. New material was written an in January -00 the song “Blood covered my needs” was recorded for the metal compilation “In the shadow of death” which was released by Endtime Productions. During the two and a half years the band had existed, that was absolutely the most brutal Crimson Moonlight song ever! In spite of this, Crimson Moonlight only played a few concerts in -00.
At this time Alexander and Jonathan left the band. In the beginning of -01 Alexander returned and brought a friend, Samuel Lundström, as a new guitarist. Crimson Moonlight only played one concert that year, and the rest of the time we wrote some new songs. In the midst of August -01 we entered Studio 34:an in Tibro to record some new songs. One of those songs is found on the compilation “Power from the sky” and it´s called “Touch of emptiness”. The compilation was released by CL Music and Publishing, nowadays called Rivel Records. Later during the year Crimson Moonlight got the opportunity to make a video for a song, and we chose to make a video for “Blood covered my needs”. The video was shot outside Stockholm in October -01.
At Christmas time -01 year Alexander left the band again, now for the last time, and at the end of June -02 David left the band to join another band, Sanctifica. Crimson Moonlight only played one concert in -02, and that was the final one for David. That concert Samuel was replaced by another guitarist, Per Sundberg, and later during the summer Samuel also quit the band and was permanently replaced by Per
At this time we also found a new bass player in the former Sanctifica member Hubertus Liljegren. The joining of Per and Hubertus opened up new musical dimensions for Crimson Moonlight and we decided to concentrate on hard and melodic black metal. We immediately started to write new songs and very soon we were questioned by Christian Rivel at Rivel Records about recording a full length CD to be released in 2003. After some discussions Crimson Moonlight chose to sign Rivel Records and continued to write new songs.
In January/February-03 we entered the studios “Studio Resound” outside Tibro and “Dream Factory” outside Jönköping for recording the album “The covenant progress”. And at Mars 14th -03 the CD “The covenant progress” finally was released. With this release a very important, but absolutely not the last, chapter was written in the tale of Crimson Moonlight….
