Relentless is a band consisting of members from bands such as Avocation, Yersinia and Coldworker. Relentless was formed back in 1997 by Matte and Pär together with two other guys (robban: bass o ducky: vocals). The line-up shattered very shortly due to musical differences, but Matte and Pär struggled on!
In 1999, the first demo called "Pestilence of the Undead" was recorded and sent out to labels and fanzines around the world. After the release they recruited a guitarist (Gabbe) and a bassist (Robban... again), and the line-up once again where complete... for a while. A few live shows where made during the following year.
In the beginning of the year 2000, they recorded their second demo called "Experiment in excrement". The demo was released by "Butchery Music" and printed in about 1000 copies! This helped Relentless a lot, since the demo was sold all over europe. The response was overwhelming for such a "small" band and letters from all kinds of wierd people "dropped in". Relentless did a lot of live shows, most of them in Örebro. Unfortunately Gabbe felt he wanted to travel more than rehearsing so he was fired just when things started to work out for Relentless.
In 2001 they recorded their third s/t demo as a trio (?), They made a half-hearted try to promote it, and even if it also gained good respons, it never came close to "experiment...". Relentless did a few live shows and recorded two new songs without ever releasing them officially. After a while Robban left the band and Matte and Pär where once again a duo, but it only for about a week when a new guitarist where found in Fredrik. This was in 2002.
They did two or three live shows during 2002-2003 and then Fredrik where fired because he could not find enough time for the band. This happend about the same time as the present bassplayer (Oskar) where recruited (18/02/2003 to be precise). During the summer of 2003, they have recorded 10 songs which ended up as their debut album "Tempest of Torment".
Since nothing more really happened after that, simply because of poor promotion from the label, Relentless and Arctic parted ways less than a year after the release of "Tempest of torment". They did a couple of shows in Sweden but besides that they became more or less inactive...
But then, in 2005, they got the opportunity to record a song with Rikard Löfgren (he has produced Vomitory among others), and only a couple of months later Relentless went to Abyss studio and recorded three songs with Tommy Tägtgren. But problems with living in different cities once again forced the guys to take a break, and they went on with the duties on their other bands.
In 2008, we got the idea to put out the last four songs recorded since no one had ever heard them. Oskars bandmates in Coldworker had a "side"band called Ruin, also with some unreleased songs. So we decided to see if anyone wanted to put all songs out as a split. Relapse Records liked the idea and the result became the Relentless/Ruin split.
Relentless are now inactive, but maybe we will get the band going again.. someday.
Source : http://www.myspace.com/relentlessgrind
