All Hell Breaks Loose

In 1999 Schmier and Mike Sifringer, who had gone separate ways at the end of the 1980s, put Destruction back together. The band's own chronology of 2000 says the two founders re-formed it as a three-piece because the press and the fans were demanding it, with Sven Vormann new on drums. Nuclear Blast's notes add that the line-up Schmier calls "Neo-Destruction" was laid to rest, and that Vormann had until then played only locally. The trio first tested the water that summer at the Bang Your Head, With Full Force and Wacken festivals, where they also played a new song, "The Butcher Strikes Back". Schmier later named the 1999 Wacken comeback among the most memorable shows of his career on the band's website. Peter Tägtgren of Hypocrisy and Pain, who also produced records at his own Abyss Studios and was, by the label's account, a long-time Destruction fan, was in the Wacken crowd. Once signed to Nuclear Blast, the band recorded at the Abyss in Pärlby, Sweden, at the end of 1999, and the album was mastered at Klangstudio Leyh in Sandhausen, Germany, in January 2000. Tägtgren co-produced it with the band and added guitar and vocals to "Total Desaster 2000". Schmier played bass and sang, Sifringer played guitar and Vormann played drums. Nuclear Blast released the album in Germany in April 2000, and it spent one week in the German album chart at number 67. The American edition added a cover of Metallica's "Whiplash", and a two-disc German edition came with a six-track bonus CD. The Japanese edition of 21 September 2000 carried those six tracks and "Whiplash" for nineteen in all. The band then toured on Nuclear Blast's festival package with Crematory, Hypocrisy, Kataklysm and Raise Hell, and headlined in America with Kataklysm and Dying Fetus in support.