Behind the Realms of Madness

Formed in July of 1984 in Birmingham, the original line-up of Sacrilege consisted of female singer Tam, Damian Thompson (guitar), Tony May (bass) and Liam Pickering (drums). In July 1985 Liam left an was replaced by Andy Baker. Sacrilege were following the normal course of action for a band just starting out, and after a few months of gigging locally put together some rough demos which were distributed throughout the metal and punk/hardcore scene. The first real interest came from Children Of The Revolution Records (C.O.R.) who offered them a deal to record a mini-album. Sacrilege went into the studio and recorded the six songs “Lifeline”, “Shadow From Mordor”, “At Death’s Door”, “A Violation Of Something Sacred”, “The Closing Irony” and “Out Of Sight”. Musically they were following the approach of English bands like Broken Bones, English Dogs and Discharge to fuse the energy of hardcore/punk with more accomplished metal riffing. In the book »Contract In Blood – A History Of UK Thrash Metal« by Ian Glasper guitarist Damian Thompson explained: “We had all been listening to a lot more metal, the usual suspects like Metallica, Slayer and Venom, but we had also started listening to much older stuff like Black Sabbath and Pentagram … even Deep Purple! One band that influenced us massively from very early on was Trouble, who were very much out there doing their own thing at the time; I admired that a lot.” »Behind The Realms Of Madness« received very little promotion at the time but the press response was excellent. Whilst the band continued writing new material and rehearsing, features appeared in Kerrang! and Metal Forces, with sacks of fan mail pouring in from around the globe. The original pressing on C.O.R. is said to have sold more than 11,000 copies in Europe alone with another 15,000 units flogged in the US of A via Pusmort Records. »Behind The Realms Of Madness« was first re-issued on Metalcore Records in the UK in 1991, with the CD version containing nine exclusive live tracks from a show in Leeds (in 1986). In his fantastic book author Ian Glasper sums up: “Sacrilege’s »Behind The Realms Of Madness« has influenced hundreds of bands all around the world, but they played less than two dozen gigs in total, which as left them shrouded in mystery compared to bands like Onslaught and English Dogs who toured extensively back then, and since.”