A small biography I found some in the www... Don't know from whom and which side, sorry...

It's 1987. Influenced by mighty Gods like VENOM, POSSESSED, HELLHAMMER, MESSIAH and early DEATH, the current cult Death Metal band ASPHYX sees the dark light. Founded by drummer Bob Bagchus and guitarist Tonny Brookhuis ASPHYX begins to play cover versions of DEATH's "Infernal Death", CELTIC FROST's "Nocturnal Fear" and MAYHEM's "Necrolust". Soon ASPHYX starts to develop their own style of death the brutal way. In December 1988 they record a rehearsal demo "Enter The Domain" with vocalist/bassplayer Christian Colli from Germany. This tape was received quiet well, although Death/Doom Metal wasn't that popular at the time. But ASPHYX went on - without Christian Colli who decided to leave the band. A new singer/bassplayer was found soon after in the dark person of Theo Loomans. ASPHYX now existed of Bob Bagchus (drums), Tonny Brookhuis (guitar) and Theo Loomans (vocals/bass).

Bob and Theo both agreed on the fact that the "Enter The Domain" demo from '88 should be re-recorded and feature the VENOM classic "Countess Bathory" as a cover version. In April '89 Eric Daniels joined the trio as the second guitar maniac. In July '89 demo No. II "Crush The Cenotaph" was released. This time it was a studio demo which only costed 140 Dutch Guilders (~80$). How little did the four know that this tape would become one of the underground's most popular demos and ASPHYX one of the most popular bands in the real and true world of Death & Doom. "Crush The Cenotaph" sold over 5000 copies worldwide!

In the meantime Bob and Theo had a demo project called EVOKER. That project was a tribute to Hellhammer and a 'one time only thing'.

In December '89 the four deathsters recorded the famous "Mutilating Process" 7" for Gore Records (a division of Nuclear Blast). It was limited to 1000 copies and sold out in no time! ASPHYX became more and more popular. In 1990 they did a show in Hardenberg with PARADISE LOST as their support act - hard to imagine nowadays, but it shows the underground popularity of ASPHYX as it was and still is. In the same year Tonny left the band. ASPHYX went on, of course, and Bob, Theo and Eric recorded the "Embrace The Death" LP for CMFT Productions England. That 'company' broke up and the LP never saw the light of darkness. But the advance tape circulated in the underground and reactions were excellent. The "Embrace The Death" LP was adored and beloved for it showed the real ASPHYX: dark, occult and heavy as HELL itself people wanted so see the album get released, which happened about 5 1/2 years later. Many songs from "Embrace The Death" can be found on the famous ASPHYX album "The Rack", but not as heavy, evil and dark as the originals on the "Embrace The Death" recordings. These recordings are for the true ASPHYX underground fans, since many of them were asking for this release. So the original material from 1990 was re-released in its original state, no re-mixing, but that's just the one and only true ASPHYX sound.

ASPHYX's unofficial split in 1996 was preceded by a reincarnation under the name Soulburn (featuring the core of ASPHYX; Bob Bagchus on drums, Eric Daniels on Guitars and Pentacle member Wannes Gubbels as new vocalist/bassist). Their subsequent album "Feeding on Angels" in 1998 ever diminished the proud following of underground maniacs that ASPHYX have always maintained. In fact many people consider that later Soulburn line-up as the most powerful one in the band's history and since the musical approach was was kept as untamed and "asphyxiating" as ever before, it was only a matter of time to see the band re-baptized as ASPHYX.