Benevolent to Release 'The Covenant'

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Fadi, Hadi and Gad (from left)

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Dubai-based metal band Benevolent release their debut album, The Covenant, in March. The record, which features ex-Chimaira drummer Andols Herrick, is the latest milestone for the band, which was formed by brothers Hadi and Fadi Sarieddine in 2007. The Lebanese siblings, who were living in Kuwait at the time, started as an acoustic duo playing covers before they began writing their own material. “I’d been playing guitar for quite a few years back then,” says guitarist and clean vocalist Hadi, “and I’d had a few attempts at bands that had failed miserably. We talked about the possibility of writing some originals, and we decided to just give it a shot.” The band, then performing as Eminence (“We realized that name sucked for two reasons,” Hadi explains. “Firstly, it sounds like Evanescence. Second, it’s just, you know… lame”), wrote their first song, “Solace” in 2008. “It was really mellow and slow, clean vocals and stuff like that. And then somewhere along the way – I don’t know what happened, maybe we got a little bit of anger – but we kind of just got heavier. Drastically.” The band’s second track, 2009’s “Corporatacide,” owed far more to artists like Meshuggah, featured more of Fadi’s growled vocals, and saw the introduction of more progressive elements – “a kind of celestial sound,” Hadi explains – that would go on to characterize Benevolent’s material.

After parting ways (amicably) with their then guitarist and drummer, the brothers recorded The Divided EP, a five-track disc that was released in November 2010. The response was positive and Benevolent signed with now-closed Spellbind Records – Spellbind founder and Nervecell guitarist Barney Ribeiro still acts as the band’s booking agent – and began playing shows outside of Kuwait. In 2012, Hadi moved to Dubai, where Fadi and many of their family already lived. “Kuwait is a tricky place to play music,” Hadi says. “The scene there mostly exists online. Our stuff is really intense and really heavy, and we tried getting a few gigs in Kuwait but it just never worked out. You never knew what might happen. The gig might get shut down, or the organizer might get in trouble, so it was really tricky.” When the opportunity to continue playing in the U.A.E. came about, the band were keen to maintain their momentum. Hadi had been working on material for The Covenant since December 2010, just a month after the release of The Divided EP. “Everybody was so buzzed about [the EP] that I wanted to just start writing. Having said that, a lot of those demos have since been scrapped or deleted… They were too watered-down, too over-zealous and unorganized. But from those demos, one of the songs that came out was “Metamorphosis” – which is the song that helped lock in the vibe for the album. And that’s the first song that I sent to Andols.”

Hadi had messaged the former Chimaira drummer on Facebook, in response to an ad that Herrick was available for session work. “He replied, saying that he really liked the music, the vocals, and the overall style. And originally we were only supposed to do one song, but he’s ended up playing on the whole album. It’s amazing. It’s absolutely crazy that Andols Herrick is playing on our record.” Herrick, for his part, has been vocal in his praise for The Covenant. “He actually called it a masterpiece,” Hadi says. “It’s insane. It’s one off the bucket list.” As was their opening slot for Megadeth in 2012 when Benevolent (now a three-piece with the addition of guitarist Mohammed Gad in 2011, and playing with live drummer Rahul Hariharan) opened for Mustaine et al in Dubai.

It’s not surprising that, after The Covenant comes out in March, they might want to take it easy for a little while, at least in terms of composing new material. “I’m forcing myself not to write any music for the next few months,” Hadi says. “We want to promote the record, we want to gig, we want to go outside of Dubai, play India and Europe. This is a record we’re really proud of, and it took a lot of work to get it done. We want to share it with as many people as we can.”

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