Amebix formed in 1978 & were an English crust punk band from Tavistock, Devon. A pioneer of the crust punk genre, Amebix's merger of anarcho-punk and post-punk with elements of heavy metal, particularly early extreme metal, inspired musicians who would go on to define the genres of grindcore, black metal & death-doom.
By being one of the first bands to blend anarcho-punk and heavy metal music, Amebix are often cited as one of the key bands that helped to create the crust punk genre, and as being influential to many extreme metal bands, especially black metal bands.
They've gone through numerous member changes and have existed from 1978-1987, 2008-2012.
Amebix began their career playing music heavily indebted to Killing Joke. They first embraced metal influences on their 1983 album No Sanctuary, which was one of the earliest releases in the crust punk genre. However, the album retained much of the band's early post-punk sound, to the extent that Altaride Chronicles magazine called the album "post-punk crust". The crust punk sound was codified on their subsequent album Arise (1985). The group however continued to differentiate themselves from the other groups in the genre, by continuing to use elements of post-punk, with Maximum Rocknroll writer Joao Seixas describing them as "expanding on what Killing Joke began with, a Motörhead-inspired sense of rock'n'roll songwriting, and adding a taste of what can be described as deathrock-oriented post-punk guitar atmosphere."
In 2014 Rob "The Baron" Miller joined forces with Jon Misery (Misery), Andy Lefton (War//Plague) and Michel "Away" Langevin of Voivod to form Tau Cross
In 2019 Stig Miller and Mayorga briefly formed a band with Casey Chaos, recording eighteen songs but never releasing any or deciding on a name. In 2023, Stig Miller and Mayorga formed False Fed with Jeff Janiak of Discharge on vocals and JP Parsons on bass.