Sentence of Death

The band grew out of Knight of Demon, a group in south-western Germany that Schmier joined as its bassist, and took the name Destruction as the music grew heavier and faster. In 1984 it made the demo Bestial Invasion of Hell and mailed it to labels. Schmier remembers Noise Records writing back that it did not sign punk bands, while Steamhammer was among several that showed interest; the three chose SPV/Steamhammer, in their view the biggest label around. The label's plan was to put out an EP first and offer an album deal if the fans took to it. The line-up was Schmier on bass and vocals, Mike Sifringer on guitar and Tommy Sandmann on drums. The label booked Caet Studio in Berlin, where the six songs were recorded and mixed in September 1984. Wolfgang Eichholz, guitarist of S.A.D.O., is credited as producer, but by Schmier's account he barely showed up, and it was the engineer Horst Müller who recorded, mixed and mastered the record. None of the three had been to Berlin before; Sandmann recalls driving there in a truck along the transit route through East Germany. Two songs from the demo, "Antichrist" and "Tormentor", were held back because the tape had already sold well in the underground and the band wanted to give fans something new, so "Black Mass" and "Devil's Soldiers" took their place. The latter was written after the demo, in a bid to set a new mark for speed. Steamhammer released the EP in November 1984 as a 12-inch mini-album, catalogue number SH 0020. The cover photograph was taken in a cemetery in Hanover, where SPV was based. When Metal Blade issued the record in the United States in 1985, it used a different frame from the same session; Sandmann says the band did not find out for a long time and was never consulted. The response from fans went far beyond anything the three had expected, the label signed them for an album, and they set straight to writing the songs for their first full-length record, Infernal Overkill.