Our ideas were simple and concise. We would play sick, heavy, absolutely fucking evil death metal music as exemplified by the true masters-Slayer, Sodom, Death, Exodus, Kreator, Destruction, VoiVod, Hellhammer/Celtic Frost, Venom, Possessed, and a little Mercyful Fate. We wanted to be a bludgeoning monstrosity- bleeding, screeching and howling in horror-black hearted, growling, with a rumbling death rattle that never claimed to be the fastest of the most technical-rather, we wanted to be the exact distillation of what the phrase "death metal" meant to us, both sonically and musically.

We then wrote our pus stained battle hymns- "Dormancy," based on the Evil Dead movies, "Stygian Darkness," about nazi death camps (I had a pretty healthy obsession with fascism at this point), "Cessations," possibly our deadliest track, with riff provided by Jason Neikess, stolen from an old Queen song. "The Immortal Strife," another song about war machines and mass violence, and "Grotesque Disjunction," a tune not only containing one hell of a heavy riff by Eric Dorsett, but one of my most disgusting set of lyrics. We quickly recorded our 87' demo and thus began our tape trading and live existence.

At this time-Fall 1987-there was absolutely no underground death metal scene in Portland, Oregon. Yeah, Slayer, Metallica, Merciful Fate, Exodus, Megadeth had all been to town, but the only thing it gave birth to so far was Wermacht-a speed metal outfit whose on stage frat boy antics and faster than you aesthetic was far from the thick, dense, grungy cauldron of carnage we wanted to infect people with. We eventually met another group called Saviour, who played a more technical style of thrash that was pretty great in it's own right, but never quite as vile as we felt the type of death metal we adored should be presented. On October 10th, 1987 we debuted our grand guttural invention to a new scene that gathered at a VFW hall in South East Portland to witness our very first show, which also featured Bay Area thrashers Sadus headlining.

In the summer of 1988, we decided that we needed to re-record our 87' demo, quality of recording being cited as a main reason. It was also an excuse to introduce our new guitarist Jason Boothe, as well as one of our newest anthems of sickness, "Carnage." We also covered a Cheap Trick song during these sessions, a personal favorite. We played more shows as the scene developed with the introduction of Chemical Annihilation, Machine, and our good friends Demise. We became avid demo traders, receiving all the early demos by Morbid Angel, Dead And Bloated, Sindrome, Soothsayer and Sadus, just to name a few.

Then came Gary Shaw and the "Vanish Into Enslavement" period. Originally released as a cassette single only, this marked our distinct interest in becoming a bit more technical, Kreator's "Pleasure To Kill" being a primary influence. Gary only lasted about a year, as we were moving on to a different perspective in our sound that resulted in the "Wall Within" demo, and our fourth lead guitarist, Mark Rhemrev. We presented the new line up at our opening slot for Dark Angel, which is where the live tracks are taken from.

After this we recorded what became our most successful demo, "In The Insane," a different approach to thrash music that would ultimately lead us to our doom. This demo included Chris Carey's wicked homage to Poison Idea and Motorhead - "Motorpsycho," one of his best riffs. We formulated a sound that incorporated thrash, speed and death metal with classic rock riffs and tempos that would allow the songs to breath as well as crush, producing and pre-dating the kind of ridiculous metal cross breeding that would become "nu metal" in the hands of groups like Korn, Rage Against The Machine, and Marilyn Manson. Apology accepted?

Never did we realize that we were of the original post-modern generation that took teenage rebellion to some of its furthest extremes. During our peak, 1987-1990, we were able to create the sound of our inner selves, the sound of teenage boys looking for the next great, brutal threat they can make to the world before they have to think about it too much. We made short horror films, we obsessed over the goriest movies, we bought every issue of every frightening, gore-splattered magazine and comic book we could get our hands on, we owned all the latest European records that were harsh and fast, we couldn't get enough of this subculture we knew to be more offensive and exhilarating than anything we'd known before; This is us, this was our world, and this is our music.
-Mark Murphy 2006