Taking their name from the Venom song, Angel Dust arrived on the German metal scene in 1986 with Into The Dark Past, a solid, crunchy Slayer-esque affair, that, while an excellent album in its own right, has little in common with the band's succeeding releases. The rhythm section of Frank Banx and Dirk Assmuth recruited three new members and the band released the more power-metal flavored To Dust You Will Decay in 1998, but by 1990 the band was done It would be seven years before Banx and Assmuth put another new version of the band together (featuring, among others, Banx's brother Steven on keyboards), and four albums were released between 1998 and 2002 with a mostly stable lineup. By this time the band had risen to the top tier of German power metal bands, as all four albums were well received by both fans and critics.

Since their last release in 2002 the band has again gone into turmoil, with member changes and rumors of breaking up occurring frequently. Finally, a new lineup has emerged (Assmuth is the sole orignal member, but returning guitarist Bernd Aufermann and the aformentioned Steven Banx are still around), and a new album (VII) was announced for a planned 2007 release, but that has not yet happened.