Since the start in 1995, The Provenance general aim, both musically as well as lyrically, has been to portray the hopelessness, despair and frustration of living in a bleak and gloomy world. This is also where one is able to find the beauty and wonders of reality.
Having released How would you like to be spat at in January 2005, they managed to prove, not only to themselves but also to the attentive masses, they stand securely with both feet on the ground in an experimental, tentative world of pitch-black music. The drastic development this band has undergone over the years clearly indicates their uniqueness when it comes to experimentation and alteration, musically as well as personally. In hope to inspire and enthuse, The Provenance incessantly continues to pound the shape of uniform, homogeneous and narrow-minded conceptions of the gothic/death genre. The Swedes have always embraced the notion of artistic exploration and development and consistently return with a fresh musical approach incomparable to each and every one of their previous releases, including the awe-inspiring work of 2001’s 25th hour; bleeding, 2003’s Still at arms length and 2005’s How would you like to be spat at.
Leaving Scarlet Records behind in 2005, the band strives onward with their fourth full-length release Red flags, due 2006 on Peaceville Records so the bands future looks brighter than ever before.
Through various hardships and ordeals, in the face of mundane everyday life intrusions, this dark and restless quintet has constantly stuck together. They have stood and delivered, year by year, album by album and thus, unsurprisingly, the number of followers has steadily increased. With Red flags the band makes perfectly clear they will stand even taller, see even clearer and speak even louder. There is definitely an undeniable straightforwardness in correlation with Red Flags and the lyrics and music portray the aggressive, heartbroken and cynical insights of what life may and most frequently does bring. It is time to put up a fight and stare the wretchedness and cruelty of mankind dead in the eye. Pull yourselves together and let us take this final step together and collectively walk into the mouth of oblivion. Raise your flags people, for revolution will come and the leaders have already been appointed.
So, to all devotees of dim and expressionistic music, no matter in what casing; this is The Provenance in 2008, reluctant to look back. This is The Provenance, the official sponsors of the end, and now officially ended.
