Living Death were formed in 1981 by the Kelch brothers, Reiner on guitar and Dieter on bass. In the early days, Eric was standing in on drums. The line-up was completed by Frank Fricke on second guitar and Thorsten "Toto" Bergmann behind the microphone. His extremely shrill voice was the main reason why it was hard for the mainstream public to relate to Living Death. In 1983, the band recorded a three-track demo resulting in a deal with the Belgian indie label Mausoleum Records. Their debut album "Vengeance of Hell" was released a year later and suffered from a very tinny production (as a result the album was re-mixed and re-issued in 1985 - with slightly better results). However, it was the raw sound that made Living Death attract a very dedicated hard core of fans (mainly in their home country of Germany).
