Therion was formed by Christofer Johnsson in 1987. The place was Upplands Väsby, a suburb to Stockholm in Sweden, known for breeding other famous artists like Europe, Candlemass and Yngwie Malmsteen and the first name of the band was Blitzkrieg, a name that fitted well to their noisy trash and heavy metal fusion they did at the time.

After searching for the band’s musical identity and even splitting up for a few months, the band was, by 1988, called Therion, Christofer had changed to playing guitar, a new bass player called Eric Gustafsson had been recruited and the band had become one of the Swedish pioneers in death metal.