MACERATION
Danish death metal

Maceration, Denmark's pioneering death metal band, formed in 1989 by Invocator guitarist/vocalist Jacob Hansen (drums/voc), Lars Bangsholt (guitar), Rune Hansen (guitar/voc) and Invocator guitarist Jakob Schultz (bass). The debut album "A Serenade of Agony" was released in 1991 feautring Dan Swanö on vocals. In 2022 Maceration re-united and released their second album "It Never Ends..." - again with Dan Swanö on vocals and a big comeback in growling for the legendary swedish musician known from Edge of Sanity, Bloodbath and many others. With a new album, 'Serpent Devourment,' releasing January 31, 2025, Maceration continue to deliver old school death metal with the true swedish chainsaw HM2 sound and this time Swanö again produced and mixed the album but gave the vocal duties 100% to regular singer Jan Bergmann Jepsen.

The Beginning
Back in 1989 Jacob Hansen and Jakob Schulz played together in Invocator in Esbjerg, Denmark. Invo- cator gained a massive interest from all over the world. But Jacob Hansen also wanted to do something else and play another instrument than guitar. He wanted to have a sideproject along Invocator’s frenzy of aggressive deaththrash. Bands such as Autopsy, Carcass, Repulsion, Devastation, Death, Obituary, Massacre and Defecation was among favorites for both Jacob Hansen, Jakob Schultz and friends Lars Bangsholt and Rune Hansen.

Jacob began writing riffs inspired by some of those bands and recorded some songs on a 4-track playing both guitar, drums and taking care of the vocal duties as well. Since Lars Bangsholt (guitar) and Rune Hansen (guitar/voc) wanted to form a band Jacob went with them as drummer/singer and Jakob Schultz hooked op with them as the bass player (normally guitarist in Invocator). The band played the songs written by Jacob as well as covers by Death, Obituary and Defecation. The band was serious but most of all it was for the fun of it between best friends who was hanging out all the time drinking “Bjørnebryg” and headbanging to ‘Slowly We Rot’, ‘Severed Survival’, ‘Symphonies of Sickness’, ‘Scream Bloody Gore’ and ‘Altars of Madness’.

The idea was to play straight and simple death metal, which was not the thing for Invocator. The guitars was tuned down to C combined with a Marshall JCM800, an EQ and a classic Boss HM2 pedal to get that heavier and uglier sound. Jacob had been in contact with Gylve Nagell (aka. Fenriz) doing some tape trading. Darkthrone had just released their debut, ‘Soulside Journey’, which was magnificent and Maceration managed to get Darkthrone to Esbjerg. It is one of very few concerts, they’ve ever played. The concert was recorded and Maceration released it as a live demo. Later the debut album ‘A Serenade of Agony’ was released in 1992 on Progress Red Labels.

Originally the band was signed by Turbo Music in Germany. The name alone should have led them to say no. The deal was for one album with an option for a second. Maceration should pay for the recording. Turbo had also released other bands - among others Funeral Nation, so they seemed serious enough. As the band had recorded the album and the bill had to be paid, the label had gone bankrupt and Maceration were left with the bill, which they of course couldn’t pay! Progress Red Labels from Denmark took over the contract and paid the studio.

The biggest scoop for Maceration was to get Dan Swanö to record the vocals. Few months before enter- ing the Red House Studio in Odense, Denmark, Rune Hansen (voc/guitar) left and Dan was contacted as a replacement for the album only. The band had tried different singers at home, but there was not really any, who could deliver the goods. Jacob and Jakob knew Dan, because Invocator played several gigs with Edge of Sanity. In fact, Edge of Sanity and Invocator got signed almost at the same time by Black Mark’s owner “The Boss” who saw both bands when they played in Nörrköping, Sweden, with Entombed. Due to contractual reasons with Black Mark, Dan Swanö did the vocals for the Maceration album under his moniker Day DiSyraah.

When Jakob Schultz left Invocator as guitarist in july 1992 he took up the challenge to move on with Mac- eration now switching to guitar. Lars and Jakob hooked up with new members: drummer Steffen Lerke Nielsen (ex. Agonize), Jonas Holmberg (vocals) and Christian Løndal (bass, ex. Agonize). A video to ‘The Mind Rampant’ was recorded and the band played several gigs in Denmark - with bands like Konkhra, Dominus, Gorguts, Deadhead and Blasphemy as well as touring in the Netherlands with Beyond Belief and Geronimo. But after that the members split up and Maceration ceased to exist. A few years later the album was re-released by Progress/Diehard with another album cover (see back of this booklet) originally suggested by Maceration. It was not a full re-release - only the front cover was changed.

The return
Maceration hiatus was over in 2022 and the Danish death metal band released their new album ”It Never Ends…” november 25th featuring death metal legend Dan Swanö – again on vocals. This happened 30 years after the release of their debut and only studio album this far.

The Danish band played a pivotal role in the local death metal scene, being among the pioneers of the style in Denmark. Their "A Serenade Of Agony" album, also with Dan Swanö on vocals and members of pioneers Invocator, paved the way for a whole generation of Danish death metal bands to follow.
In the frenzy of the "A Serenade Of Agony" re-release, the live album "Live Disfigurement" (recovering long, historical concerts recordings) and the book "Incombustible Remains" (telling the story of the band's first concert, opening for DarkThrone), Maceration reformed and are back in business. The band allready played important festivals such as Metal Magic, Death Coast, Odense Metalfest, Alcatraz, In Flammen, Aalborg Metal Festival and more.

In the comeback album, Dan Swanö (ex-Edge Of Sanity, Bloodbath) is back as a session lead vocalist, just as on the debut album, and also as the producer. The album is mixed and mastered by Dan Swanö in his own Unisound studio, where he also recorded the vocals.
- At the time of the initial request I had given up singing all together, and especially growling, but since Maceration was the first album session job I ever did as a vocalist, back in 1991, I felt that I needed to be on this album, so I decided to sign on for the growling duties, as well as the sound duties, and pay my respects not only to the band for choosing me to sing on their first album, but also to finally singing on a full-on top notch HM-2 death metal release, Dan Swanö says about his role as session vocalist and producer on the upcoming album.
- I must say that that it sounds so much better than I ever though possible, given that I really haven't used this particular style of growling since the mid 90's and combined with the awesome riffing and the world-class drumming, it sometimes teleported me back to the vibe I had when I recorded the vocals for Edge of Sanity's "Unorthodox" back in 1991, Dan Swanö explains.

Third strike
With a comeback album 30 years after the debut, there has been great interest in the resurrected band. Maceration has received massive press coverage in the largest media within the metal genre both in Denmark and abroad.
With the great success of the comeback album, it is now time for a new Maceration album. The band’s third album “Serpent Devourment” will be released on 31 January 2025. Again, Dan Swanö has played an important role in the creation as producer and the man behind the mix in his Unisound studio.
But this time he has not recorded the vocals. Maceration’s regular lead singer Jan Bergmann Jepsen (ex. Cor Vacante) has done the recording duties and he leaves no doubt after he has taken over the vocals on the new recordings. Jan Bergmann has been with Maceration live since the resurrection in 2022 and on some tracks on “It Never Ends” in a duet with Swanö, but now he is alone at the front. With a deep, growling and brutal vocal style, he is the perfect successor to Swanö and he carves this into stone on the new album.

Ten brand new tracks are what will be served on “Serpent Devourment”. Brutality, speed and heaviness are the key words for all tracks, but also melody and catchy riffs and choruses characterize Maceration’s tracks as always. This applies to the heavy riffs in the title track and “Where Leeches Thrive” and the fast easily recognizable themes in “The Den of Misery” or the triplet based aggressive main riff in “A Corrosive Heart Fell Below”.
The whole new album is a varied creature, with fast death metal attacks like “The Suffering” and “For The End Alone” over heavy “Revolt The Tyrant Dream”, “In Rot Unleashed” or “Emptiness Embraced”. Fans of Maceration will nod in recognition to the band’s hallmarks and style, while new listeners will be embraced by stylish, brutal and aggressive old school death metal that has references back to the forefathers of death metal and also from the members’ previous bands such as Invocator, Spectral Mortuary and Corpus Mortale.
In addition to singer Jan Bergmann Jepsen, the band consists of Jakob Schultz – guitarist who was also previously in the renowned Danish band Invocator. Rune Koldby is a bass player with years of experience in Danish metal bands such as Exmortem and Spectral Mortuary and he has taken over the bass duties after Robert Tengs who switched to guitar and took over from original member Lars Bangsholt. Lars has also contributed to the new album as part of the recording line-up and written and recorded the two songs "The Suffering" and "From The End Alone". Drums are handled by Nicolai Kaltoft (ex. Corpus Mortale) and Jan Bergmann is doing the vocals.