Acheron

Initially, Acheron came across as an ordinary early-1990s death metal outfit from Florida, much like countless other groups active in the scene at the time. Yet closer inspection exposed the ensemble's far darker purpose, rooted in the satanic practices of founder and guitarist Vincent Crowley, who also directed a youth organization called the Order of the Evil Eye. Formed in 1988, Crowley joined forces with Peter Gilmore, an occasional composer of electronic music, to promote their shared ideology through the band's aggressive death metal recordings, which first appeared via several well-received demos ahead of the 1991 full-length debut Rites of the Black Mass. The follow-up efforts Satanic Victory in 1993 and Lex Talionis in 1995 arrived soon afterward, each built around the central pair of Crowley and Gilmore alongside a shifting lineup of supporting players and offering solid, if unexceptional, death and black metal. Crowley's outspoken opposition to Christianity, however, earned him greater attention than the music itself, culminating in his designation as a priest of the Church of Satan by its founder Anton Szandor LaVey. In subsequent years he devoted increased energy to public debates with regional televangelists, which curtailed Acheron's recorded activity to the 1998 release Those Who Have Risen and the 2003 album Rebirth: Metamorphosing Into Godhood.