Since 1996, Germany's Heaven Shall Burn have focused on politicized death metal blended with metalcore, melodic death, and deathcore. Their lyrics routinely voice anti-racism, anti-fascism, resistance, oppression, and animal rights, and every member maintains a vegan or vegetarian lifestyle. The band's ferocious sound has been likened to England's Bolt Thrower and Sweden's the Haunted, yet moves at a far more frantic pace. Their second album, 2002's Whatever It May Take—issued alongside a reissue of the EP In Battle There Is No Law—took them beyond Germany for shows in Iceland, Greece, the U.K., and at home festivals such as Wacken Open Air. Century Media debut Antigone arrived in 2006 with heavier, riff-driven arrangements that largely abandoned the melodic death metal side of their style; its success led to a headlining U.K. tour. The Iconoclast trilogy—Iconoclast I: The Final Resistance (2008), the Vienna live set Iconoclast II: Bildersturm - The Visual Resistance, and Iconoclast III: Invictus (2010)—each reached Germany's Top 25 and confirmed the group as one of heavy metal's steadiest live draws. Veto (2013) reached number 14 on the U.S. Top Heatseekers Albums chart and finally established Heaven Shall Burn as a major concert attraction stateside, while 2016's Wanderer became their strongest seller to date, landing inside the Top 20 on five European charts and peaking at number three in Germany.
Guitarist Maik Weichert and drummer Matthias Voigt formed the band, then called Consense, in fall 1996; singer Marcus Bischoff and bassist Eric Bischoff joined soon after. After early demos the quartet issued the 1998 mini-CD In Battle There Is No Law (later reissued with bonus tracks) and a split LP with Fall of Serenity, then added second guitarist Patrick Schleitzer. Lifeforce Records signed them in early 2000, resulting in the Asunder album, a split CD with Caliban, and tours across Europe and South America. Worldwide distribution arrived with the well-received 2002 album Whatever It May Take, after which Century Media released Antigone in 2004. Deaf to Our Prayers followed in 2006, and the conceptual Iconoclast series began with Iconoclast 1: The Final Resistance in 2008; Iconoclast II: Bildersturm - The Visual Resistance, a live DVD/CD, appeared in 2009, and Iconoclast III: Invictus closed the cycle in 2010. Matthias Voigt sat out some shows for back surgery but returned for Veto in 2013 before permanent departure later that year; Christian Bass took over on drums.
Following extensive touring in Europe, South America, and the United States plus a brief hiatus, the band recorded twelve originals and two covers—“Agent Orange” by Sodom and “The Cry of Mankind” by My Dying Bride—with producer Alexander Dietz. A deluxe edition added a bonus disc of earlier covers, and the subsequent world tour secured main-stage slots at nearly every major metal festival for the next two years. In 2019 the group returned to the studio, again with guitarist Alexander Dietz producing, to create the loosely conceptual double album Of Truth & Sacrifice. Its two volumes, “Of Truth” and “And Sacrifice,” contain nineteen original tracks plus a cover of Nuclear Assault’s “Critical Mass” on the second disc. The set appeared in spring 2020; a deluxe edition included the film Mein grünes Herz in dunklen Zeit on DVD, bringing the total runtime to roughly 97 minutes. It performed strongly worldwide and gave Heaven Shall Burn their first German number-one album.
