Sacrificium

Sacrificium is a Christian death metal band from Stuttgart, Germany, formed in 1993. The band made its breakthrough in the metal scene with its 2002 album Cold Black Piece of Flesh. The second album Escaping the Stupor was released on Black Lotus Records. Their music combines melodic passages with old school death metal, and their lyrics deal with personal experiences and opinions from Christian point of view.

Biography

Sacrificium has its roots in a band called Hardway, formed by Sebastian Wagner and Oliver Tesch. Musically, the band was pop rock oriented. That changed in 1991, when the session drummer Markus Hauth took the direction more towards a hard rock sound. In 1992, Hardway performed at the reputive Steiger 14 club in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The band name was changed to Corpus Christi (not to be confused with Corpus Christi from Ohio) in 1993 and they began playing thrash metal. The style developed to death metal, and in 1994, after recording a demo, the name was changed to Sacrificium.

After a few line up changes in 1996, Sacrificium recorded its second demo and in 1998 another demo titled Mortal Fear was released. Although the demos were well-received, the vocalist Roman Wagner left Sacrificium in 2000. After that, the band played concerts with bands such as Extol, Dismember, Unleashed, The Black Dahlia Murder or My Darkest Hate. The second guitarist, Claudio Enzler, started performing vocals, and the guitarist position was taken by Ulrike Uhlmann.

In 2002 Sacrificium was signed to Whirlwind Records, who published the band's debut Cold Black Piece of Flesh. The album caught the attention of the press, and received positive reviews. For example, Rock Hard gave it 7.5/10 in its February 2004 issue. Afterwards they toured Europe with the band Brain[Faq].

On November 28, 2005, Sacrificium released its second album Escaping the Stupor on the Greek metal label Black Lotus Records. The album features guest performances by Karl Walfridsson of Pantokrator and Simon Rosén of Crimson Moonlight. Escaping the Stupor was well-received: Rock Hard gave it 7.5/10, Legacy 10/15 and Metalnews.de 6/7.

The band is currently working on new material and is updating its Facebook bulletin with pre-production demo takes and news.

Founding guitarist Oliver Tesch left the band in 2012, and was replaced by Wolfgang Nillies.

Guitarist Matthias Brandt and bass player Thorsten Brandt left the band on October 30, 2015 and have been replaced later on by Fred Berger and former member Ulrike Uhlmann.

On January 6, 2019, it was announced that longtime drummer Mario Henning was departing from the band. They therefore had to cancel their Mexico tour which would have been in April 2019. At the same time the band announced to release an EP The Avowal of the Centurion in early 2019 and a full-length record in 2020. On March 16, 2019, it was announced that former bassist Thorsten Brandt would take over Henning's position on drums. On March 18, the band revealed that The Avowals of the Centurion would be released via Nordic Mission on April 19, 2019.

Discography

Studio albums

• Cold Black Piece of Flesh (2002)
• Escaping the Stupor (2005)
• Prey for Your Gods (2013)
• Oblivion (2023)

Members

Current members

• Claudio Enzler – vocals (2000–present), guitar (1994–2000)
• Wolfgang Nillies – guitars (2012–present)
• Frederik “Fred” Berger – guitars (2017–present)
• Ulrike Uhlmann – bass (2017–present), guitars (1993–2010)
• Martin Epp – drums (2021–present)

Former members

• Oliver Tesch – guitars (1991–2012)
• Sebastian Wagner – bass, vocals (1991–1993)
• Markus Hauth – drums (1991–1995)
• Roman Wagner – vocals (1993–2000)
• Manuel Iwansky – bass (1993–1997)
• Manuel Kerkow – bass (1997)
• Samuel Herbrich – bass (1997–2008)
• Thorsten Brandt – drums (2019–2021), bass (2008–2017)
• Matthias Brandt – guitars (2010–2015)
• Daniel Maucher – guitars (2015–2017)
• Mario Henning – drums (1995–2019)

Timeline

<timeline> ImageSize = width:800 height:auto barincrement:22 PlotArea = left:100 bottom:60 top:0 right:15 Alignbars = justify DateFormat = mm/dd/yyyy Period = from:01/01/1991 till:05/03/2026 ScaleMajor = increment:2 start:1991 ScaleMinor = increment:1 start:1991 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal format:yyyy Legend = orientation:horizontal position:bottom

Colors=

id:vocals   value:red        legend:Vocals
id:guitar   value:green      legend:Guitar
id:bass     value:blue       legend:Bass
id:drums    value:orange     legend:Drums
id:studio   value:black      legend:Studio_album
id:other     value:gray(0.5)  legend:Other_release
id:bars      value:gray(0.95)

LineData=

at:12/09/2002 color:black layer:back
at:11/28/2005 color:black layer:back
at:11/13/2013 color:black layer:back
at:03/10/2023 color:black layer:back

BackgroundColors= bars:bars

BarData=

bar:Sebby       text:"Sebastian Wagner"
bar:Roman     text:"Roman Wagner"
bar:Oliver       text:"Oliver Tesch"
bar:Wolfgang  text:"Wolfgang Nillies"
bar:Ulrike       text:"Ulrike Uhlmann"
bar:Matt         text:"Matthias Brandt"
bar:Daniel      text:"Daniel Maucher"
bar:Fred        text:"Frederik Berger"
bar:Claudio    text:"Claudio Enzler"
bar:Manuel    text:"Manuel Iwansky"
bar:Manuel2  text:"Manuel Kerkow"
bar:Samuel    text:"Samuel Herbrich"
bar:Thorsten text:"Thorsten Brandt"
bar:Markus   text:"Markus Hauth"
bar:Mario      text:"Mario Henning"
bar:Martin      text:"Martin Epp"

PlotData=

width:11 textcolor:black align:left anchor:from shift:(10,-4)
bar:Sebby       from:01/01/1991 till:01/01/1993  color:vocals
bar:Sebby       from:01/01/1991 till:01/01/1993  color:bass width:3
bar:Roman     from:01/01/1993 till:01/01/2000  color:vocals
bar:Oliver      from:01/01/1991 till:06/01/2012  color:guitar
bar:Wolfgang from:06/01/2012 till:end  color:guitar
bar:Ulrike      from:01/01/1993 till:06/01/2010  color:guitar
bar:Matt        from:06/01/2010 till:10/30/2015  color:guitar
bar:Daniel     from:10/30/2015 till:06/04/2017  color:guitar
bar:Fred       from:06/04/2017 till:end color:guitar
bar:Claudio   from:01/06/1994 till:01/01/2000  color:guitar
bar:Claudio   from:01/01/2000 till:end  color:vocals
bar:Manuel    from:01/01/1993 till:06/01/1997  color:bass
bar:Manuel2  from:06/01/1997 till:11/01/1997  color:bass
bar:Samuel    from:11/01/1997 till:06/01/2008  color:bass
bar:Thorsten from:06/01/2008 till:06/26/2017  color:bass
bar:Ulrike   from:06/26/2017 till:end  color:bass
bar:Markus    from:01/01/1991  till:01/01/1995  color:drums
bar:Mario      from:01/01/1995 till:01/06/2019 color:drums
bar:Mario      from:03/16/2004 till:06/01/2008  color:guitar width:3
bar:Thorsten from:03/16/2019   till:01/01/2021  color:drums
bar:Martin from:01/01/2021     till:end         color:drums

</timeline>

External links

• Template:Wikidata Template:PAGENAMEBASE discography at DiscogsTemplate:EditAtWikidata