Swedish neo-thrash metal quintet the Defaced consists of vocalist Henrik Sjöwall, guitarists Klas Ideberg and Mattias Svensson, bassist Jörgen Lofberg, and drummer Henry Ranta. A few of these musicians are familiar names on the Swedish scene -- Ranta plays in Soilwork, while Ideberg and Lofberg are members of Darkane. However, the Defaced's music has less in common with the more traditionally "Swedish" sounding melodic death metal of either of those bands, instead sharing more in common with American acts such as Pantera and Machine Head. The Defaced issued a five-song demo in 2000, eventually leading them to sign a deal with the Italian Scarlet Records imprint. Their first release, Domination Commence, came out on Scarlet in 2001 and was licensed for release in North America by Nuclear Blast, which released it the same year. ~ William York