God Dethroned

Dutch death-metal band God Dethroned was formed in 1991 by vocalist Henri Sattler with several friends (credited only as M. Beukeveld, M. Arends, and A. Dijkstra); they recorded a demo and got the opportunity to release an album on the small German label Shark in 1992. Titled The Christhunt, it did little commercially, and God Dethroned went on hiatus the following year, with Sattler forming a new group called Ministry of Terror. Following that band's 1994 album Fall of Life and a supporting European tour, Sattler decided to re-form God Dethroned with guitarist Jens, bassist Beef, and drummer Roel. This new lineup scored a deal with Metal Blade, which issued The Grand Grimoire in late 1997; the album was released in the U.S. the following year and achieved a fair amount of airplay on college-radio metal shows. The Christhunt was reissued later that year with the cover art the band had originally wanted (a dissected rat), and the official follow-up, Bloody Blasphemy, appeared in 1999.