Despair

Germany's Despair drew inspiration from pioneering Teutonic thrash acts such as Kreator, Sodom, and Destruction, assembling a lineup that included guitarists Waldemar Sorychta and Marek Grzeszek, bassist Klaus Pachura, drummer Markus Freiwald, and frontman Robert Kampf. Kampf departed shortly after their 1989 debut album History of Hate appeared, choosing instead to establish and manage the band's independent imprint Century Media. His decision turned out to be astute, for the group's subsequent releases—1990's Beyond All Reason and 1991's Decay of Humanity, both featuring replacement singer Andreas Hentschel on Century Media—failed to separate themselves from the crowded field of contemporaneous thrash metal efforts. Meanwhile, the label expanded into a dominant force within heavy metal, eventually attracting former Despair guitarist Sorychta to the production side of the studio, where he emerged as a sought-after engineer for extreme metal during the 1990s.