The band Penitent will be a familiar name for many who indulge in dark music. Penitent has been successfully delving into the often ignored darker aspects of music and composition since the early 1990s. What kind of emotions guides us when we feel the loss of hope and the whole life seems to be nothing but a mournful bridge over a river of tears? One got to live ones life, and bear all the pain and sorrows, sadness and depression. Fatal for the majority, these dark emotions may become the pleasure for the others and give them power to survive. The punishment will come and everybody will be punished one way or another. To await or to undergo this punishment is to be a Penitent. It all started in 1994, when Karsten Hamre, the founder of Penitent, was obsessed by the idea of combining his poetry with the music, in order to create more powerful atmosphere than one could get by only reading his poems. These poems, emanated from the shadowside of life, reflected his thoughts and visions, which came from deep within the soul and mind. They dealt with themes and topics such as life and death, pain and torture, sorrow and depression. Acclaimed as "mad poetry", all of them indeed had deep sense. It's obvious that the music also should not be a kind of regular music, but a kind of musical Art, growing on people and becoming something special to each and one of us, in our own way. And Karsten Hamre fully succeeded his goal by creating such unique musical act, recognized as Penitent. Not