[1] Kekal formed in 1995 in Jakarta, Indonesia, and released an unofficial four-song demo tape.
As this demo began to circulate, additional members joined to release an official demo album called Contra Spiritualia Nequitae in 1996, and in 1998 Kekal released its self-produced debut album, Beyond the Glimpse of Dreams, which gained the band international attention.
The departure of guitarist Leo Setiawan in 2001 left the band as a duo consisting of Jeff Arwadi and Azhar Levi Sianturi, but the band continued and released the highly progressive and experimental 1000 Thoughts of Violence in 2003,[2] which led to a two-week European mini-tour in March 2004.
[3] In 2008, the band's seventh full-length album, Audible Minority, was intended to be released on December 25, 2008, as both a digital free download and a limited edition Digipak with a total of 11 songs.
[1] Despite this, former members of the band contributed to an eighth studio album, entitled 8, which was officially released in December 2010 and was made available to purchase on January 23, 2011.