SANGUIS was formed in the summer of 1999 in Austria. The band started performing live in several cities of Austria and gained a positive reaction from the audience. With some lineup changes they recorded their first MCD later in the year, with the title Mortal Art Of Blood. In 2002 they entered Exponent Studios in Slovakia and recorded their first full-length album, Chaosgate Guardians.
In 2004 Sanguis strikes back with another line up change and their second album, Infernum Infinitum, is released by Supreme Chaos Records. The band continues performing live in festivals such as Kaltenbach Open Air 2004 and - 4 years later, in 2008 - they release their third album, Ascension, through Bloodred Horizon Records.
Ascension starts with a half-minute intro and  functions as a prelude to the song I Saw The Fall Of Idols, which I think is quite an interesting choice for first piece of the album. The song has a few tempo changes and is based on interspersing of guitar riffs and melodies with the right duration and without making the piece too complicated or boring. The bridge slows down the pace so it creates a darker mood when refrain comes again with attacking growls to drown us back to hell. The next songs of the album are in the same pattern of changing tempos and clever drum breaks. Pace is alternating and creates variety between furious guitar riffs and drumming of great speed and more mid-tempo passages, which give the listener a breath until the next coming outbreak! Umbra's chaotic vocals are used with the right manner to set the mood for creating a full holocaust.  The guitars are clearly stated throughout the album in playing the rhythmic parts and also used in place of keyboards for the melodic sections and work as a composite along with the drums and the alternating tempos, so they create aggressiveness and atmosphere.
In Unter Feinden, SANGUIS chose to use a passage  of Friedrich Nietsche for lyrics. In this piece once again there are heavy drumming outbursts disputing with atmospherical moments. The song Ad Infinitum introduces a Gregorian chant choir whose droning creates a great alteration with the chaotic vocalisms of the whole song. This piece along with I Saw The Fall Of Idols are definitely the highlights of this album! There is also a cover of Immortal's Unsilent Storms In The North Abyss and I can say that the adaptation SANGUIS have done is quite successful!
Ascension creates a combination of complex and catchy tunes and it intersperses between atmospherical and melodic moments but without losing the Black Metal 'heaviness'. I wish there were more bands like SANGUIS and I wonder what's next...