VITAL REMAINS formed in 1989 in Providence, Rhode Island. They recorded their first demo, in the same year: Reduced to Ashes, (which sold some 500 copies in two weeks), proving the bands worth in the underground. In 1990, after six months of extensive live shows and rehearsing, the band recorded their second demo entitled Excruciating Pain.
Their influences included CELTIC FROST, VENOM, BATHORY, SODOM, and MERCYFUL FATE. The band signed to Peaceville subsidiary label Deaf Records in 1990. After releasing their debut album on Deaf in 1991 (Let Us Prey), the band went on to tour with legendary US gore band AUTOPSY. Their second album, the last one for Peaceville / Deaf was the classic Into Cold Darkness. Recorded & released in 1994.
This reissue of the gore metal godsend features the extra track Countess Bathory, a cover of a VENOM song that first appeared on the Peaceville compilation Under the Sign of the Sacred Star.