1998
The two former band mates Niclas “Nesmoht” Thomsen and Kenneth “Motvind” Hansen from the local Sandefjord band Extrude decided it was time to give it another try. Tired of sitting at home with their guitars, they found a place to rehearse and started to look for a line up. Soon after Nesmoht`s brother Jesper “Jaz” Thomsen was asked to give it a try on keyboards and in spite of never being in a band before he fitted in immediately, with his passion for movie music directors, he added a majestic touch to the sound.

Then after a couple of rehearsals without a drummer Hjaran “Pukk” Berge who had formerly played with Nesmoht in the party band Jonny Doe came to listen to the band and just for fun he sat down to play along and what do you know? He still plays along after almost four years, now the only thing missing was a bass player, and after trying out a few Kjetil Berge came in with his five stringed and Arch Nemesis was a fact.

NOTE: For a little while a female vocalist Siri V. Numme was added to the line-up, but it was soon discovered that most of the songs did not fit her vocal-style and the band went back to being a five-piece again.

ELEMENTS OF METAL
During this time the band continued to make music and also did a couple of live performances (with great response) but it was hard for a local metal-band to get enough gigs to work on their live show. So they decided that if they weren’t big enough for the Metal-festivals already around then, what the hell? Let’s make our own, and the ELEMENTS OF METAL festival saw the dark of night in May 2000.

(After completing E:O:M 2004 the band decided it was enough, even though the bands and the audience loved the festival it became to expensive for the band to do it all alone and with new festivals popping up all over Norway the need for bigger acts to attract people grew and with almost no support from the culture department there was no chance to keep up)

Forever
In 2000 they released their first demo Forever recorded by Morfeus (Dimension F3h, ex-Limbonic Art), and even though no deal was offered they got a lot of positive feedback from both fans and labels. Shortly after the release of the demo Kjetil left the band and was replaced by Andrè “Chain” Trevland, a 16 years old bass-player from the local punk-band TheraWada.

Then in the fall of 2001 Edgerunner Records heard that Arch Nemesis was going to release a self-financed record and they offered a distribution-deal that the band accepted. After recording most of the album a new Lead-guitar player Håvar Wormdahl was brought in thus allowing Nesmoht to concentrate on his vocal.

Shadows In The Mirror
The record (Shadows In The Mirror) was released in august, and has so far received nothing but good reviews (5/6 Scream Magazine, 8/10 Metal express, 9/10 The Streets etc.) and one guy even called it “The best Norwegian metal-debut since Norwegian metal-legends Artch released “Another Return” nearly 15 years ago”. The first printing (paid by the band) of 1000 copies was sold out in less than two months leading to Edgerunner offering the band a great deal for their next two releases.

2003
This year gave Arch Nemesis the chance to show their stuff to Metalheads outside of the Norwegian borders with first a mini-tour to Denmark and then a dream came true with their performance on one of the biggest Rock festivals in Europe, Sweden Rock Festival. A few more concerts were scheduled before the band took a break from the live scene to concentrate on creating new material for their next release, only interrupted by their performance at their festival E:O:M together with great acts like Evergrey, Green Carnation etc. This year also saw the band parting with lead guitarist Worm replaced by Inge Thorin who joined the band just in time for their Sweden Rock gig.

2004
The year starts of with the band entering the studio to record their second album and the band expressed great enthusiasm for the new material, but then all hell broke loose, due to personal indifferences Jaz decided to leave the band, a meeting took place and Motvind told the band that he too had decided to leave after finishing his guitars on the new album, after some discussion the rest of the guys decided that they would give it a go and even managed to talk Jaz into joining the band again.

of Mind and Fantasy
Released in the fall on FaceFront, OMAF received superb feedback from all over the world. It took them in both a harder and softer direction yet keeping the haunting vocals and melodic approach that gave their debut so many great reviews.

2005/2006
After a while, searching for new guitarists Lars Solbakken entered the band and with Nesmoht picking up his guitar again the band was finally back in business again but since Nesmoht had to sing while playing they decided to take in yet another guitar player to eventually take his place but for a short while they did their gigs with all three on guitar creating a massive sound with lots of harmonies, but of coarse, all good things come to an end and Lars left the band due to personal problems.

The band decided to not look for another guitar but then another blow hit them, Chain who had been with the band almost from the start had decided to seek other challenges and what seems like an endless search begun, he still does some gigs with the band when possible but hopefully the band will soon find a permanent replacement.

On the good side, the band finally found a new rehearsal place where they have built a scene, a bar and hopefully there will be a studio in the near future.

The Future?
Well, some goals are reached, two records have been released and (according to several music-critics) a new and unique style of metal has been introduced to the world by a couple of guys, just doing what they love to do. In spite of all their troubles the band still struggles on, knowing that they still have a lot of music within just waiting to take on the world, a few new songs have been written and the hopes are high for 2007

The year Arch Nemesis will strike back…