Dismember is a Swedish death metal band, formed in Stockholm in 1988. After a hiatus, the band began recording in earnest in 1991 and released their debut, Like an Ever Flowing Stream in 1991 . The album became an early example of Scandinavian death metal and established the band's fanbase, which grew with the release of Pieces ( 1992). The song "Skin Her Alive" prompted an obscenity charge in the United Kingdom, against which the band successfully defended themselves.
In 1993 Dismember released Indecent & Obscene, their most successful album ever, which featured their most famous theme: Dreaming in Red videoclip was shown very frequently in MTV's Headbanger's Ball.
Like many of the other Scandinavian death metal bands, Dismember began softening their sound in the mid- 1990s, with 1995's Massive Killing Capacity more melodic approaches, which had a good public response, leading them to try an even more soft 1997's Death Metal, which proved not to be as heavy as its name could suggest, being a sales disappointment.
In 2000, attempting to recover some power of their first two albuns, and thus the once large fanbase, a much heavier album was released. Musically somewhere between Indecent & Obscene and Massive Killing Capacity, Hate Campaign was deliberately not taken seriously by Nuclear Blast, since this was the last album to edit for Dismember. Instead Nuclear Blast prefered to have Dismember as an icon from the past (symbolized by Like an Ever Flowing Stream and Indecent & Obscene) and kept investing in secure profits exploiting these first two albums, releasing new special re-editions.
No new contract was negotiated since Nuclear Blast was interested in laying off the traditional death metal bands and Dismember themselves were unsatisfied with Nuclear Blast's deliberate poor job done for Hate Campaign.