Necrophagia

Ohio's Necrophagia stood among the earliest death metal acts of the mid-1980s, alongside San Francisco's Possessed and Florida's Death. Vocalist Killjoy launched the band in 1983, fueled by devotion to Venom that nearly matched his ardor for slasher films. Their first ripples appeared through the 1985 demo Death Is Fun. A partnership with New Renaissance yielded the debut album Season of the Dead in 1987, whose jagged coarseness nonetheless proved highly influential. Guitarist Larry Madison, bassist Bill James, and drummer Joe Blazer soon parted from Killjoy over creative differences, prompting an abrupt split.

Killjoy stayed active across multiple ventures in the ensuing years, among them the death metal supergroup Ravenous that included Nuclear Assault's Danny Lilker and Autopsy's Chris Reifert, the raw black metal outfit Viking Crown formed with Pantera's Phil Anselmo, and a thrash-gore project bearing his own name. He eventually revived Necrophagia, recruiting guitarist Anton Crowley—likewise known as Anselmo—bassist Dustin Havnen, and drummer Wayne Fabra to deliver 1998's Holocausto de la Morte, the 1999 Black Blood Vomitorium EP, and the 2000 collection Legacy of Horror, Gore and Sickness. That burst of output continued under a contract with Season of Mist Records, which released the Cannibal Holocaust EP in 2001 and the Divine Art of Torture album in 2003.