Östersund, Sweden's Sanctification were formed in the summer of 2001 by former Divine Desecration members Mathias Mohlin (vocals) and Tomas Elofsson (guitar) along with drummer Nils Fjellström (Chastisement, Dark Funeral, etc.), before adding bassist Jürgen Bylander (of Defaced Creation) in 2002 and guitarist Markus Edvardsson (Souldrainer, Chastisement). Obviously, all of these parallel bands drained some of the focus that all of the involved would have otherwise committed to Sanctification, and this explains the group's six-year gap between 2003's Misanthropic Salvation debut album and its 2009 follow-up, Black Reign, by which time one Kristoffer Hell had assumed the microphone (only to be replaced by Magnus "Masse" Broberg of Dark Funeral, Hypocrisy, etc., soon after) and Tony Westermark was handling session drums in place of a briefly rumored Tony Laureano (ex-everyone you can think of in extreme metal). Indeed, the only constant throughout Sanctification's career has been their music, which consists of ultra-brutal death metal in the style of Deicide, Krisiun, and Aeon (with whom they shared several musicians over the years), dedicated to divulging anti-Christian sentiments of all kinds. ~ Eduardo Rivadavia