Sorcery was founded in 1986 when guitarist Paul Johansson, bassist Magnus Karlsson-Mård and vocalist Ola Malmström hooked up with Fredrik Nygren, another guitarist and his cousin, the drummer Patrik Johansson. The music was then influenced by the thrash scene at the time with bands like Exodus, Slayer, Metallica and Bathory. This lineup released their first demo in 1987 called “The arrival”. Shortly afterwards Patrik and Fredrik was dismissed from the band. After various of line-ups and people come and went within the band, finaly, Fredrik decided to join the band again. The music had changed dramaticly since the first demo and was now very fast and lesser complicated. The second demo “Ancient creation” was released in the spring of 1988 and carries the legacy of the bands fastest period. The drummer at the time, Joakin Hansson, was very much influenced by bands like Cryptic Slaughter and it is much due to him that the band started to pace up. After ancient creation Joakim left the band and the members started to switch instruments with each other. Paul went from guitar to drums and Magnus changed to guitar from bass, leaving the bass spot empty. Mikael Jansson joined the band as a bassplayer and the music went a little bit slower heading towards a more traditional death metal style. In august 1989 the band recorded it..s third demo “Unholy crusade”. This demo got the french label Thrash Records interested and they offered the band a deal for a 7” single. Rivers of the dead, as it would be called was released late 1990 and the first press of a thousand records was soon sold out and by the end of the year another thousand was made. It was through that EP that the band at first came in touch with Underground records. A deal was set up and the bands first LP “Bloodchilling Tales” was released in august 1991. In November 1991 Mikael left the band founding another band with Ola called Fear my solitude. Peter Hedman was the new Guitarist hired by the band, Magnus went back to playing bass and so it carried on for a while. After a gig an April 1992 Magnus was sacked by the band and shortly afterwards they recorded a final demo as a fourpiece. This demo was actually never released but it contains three songs that up until today may be the strongest the band ever recorded. Not even this time the band would be holding on together. Fredrik left shortly afterwards and is now found in a band called Gadget which he has released some albums with. The final release of the band was in 1997 when they paticipated with one song, “Inhabitants of the tomb” on the voices of death compilation. At this time the band was a three piece unit with Ola, Paul and Peter. Paul went on to play in In Aeternum, Peter dissappeared from the scene and Sorcery called it a day after 11 years. In 2001 Paul, Mikael and Ola started to play together with Jocke Olofsson in a band called Outremer. Paul left Outremer some years later and was replaced by Henrik Lindenmo. In 2008 Jocke and Ola decided to play some death metal music again. Paul was contacted but before some songs were finished the project stopped and was put to rest until the year after. Then in spring 2009 Ola, Jocke and Henrik of Outremer brought the band back to life again. Paul was again asked to join Sorcery which he happily did, this time as a bassplayer. The band was now a full unit ready to take on the world again. Songs were made and in October the same year the band played their first gig in thirteen years. Sure more is to come from the band who is back with the strongest line-up ever.
(c) http://www.myspace.com/officialsorcery