Late '97 sees the introduction of vocalist Johannes Keekstra, because Arnout decides he wants to concentrate more on his strings. In this period the band does a couple of successful shows and regionally starts establishing their name a bit. Soon plans are made for demo-recordings, but they're never realised, for halfway '98 the group falls apart. Johannes focuses on other projects, though Arnout and Germ continue writing songs and try to get a fresh, skilled and devoted band together.

After several musicians are given a try, in '99 Douwe Talma becomes the new, powerful drummer and freak Franke Kooistra now plays guitar. Johannes joins the new line-up and the band starts creating new material. The band immediately performs quite often, among others with Cannibal Corpse, which results in growing tightness of handling instruments. The music matures a lot and the members' influences are shown more clearly. The compositions become richer, which is also due to the increasing thrash-influences that are more prominently mixed into their sound. Mortuary I.O.D. shows itself as a bit of an excentric band and knows how to combine as well as separate the aggression, the heaviness and melody of their metal. Touches of bands like Sadus, The Accüsed, Abattoir, Hallow's Eve, Sacrifice, Nuclear Assault, Disharmonic Orchestra, Messiah, Slayer, Macabre, Carcass, Death, Bluuurgh..., Anthrax, Pungent Stench, At The Gates and the likes are heard in the "thrashing death metal" of these Frisians.

It's in this time that Mortuary decides to add the abbreviation "I.O.D." to the name, to shake off the corny, cliché feel of the monnicker, and to avoid confusion with the many other bands carrying the name. I.O.D. stands for "Image Of Death", an older song of the band, but the guys don't consider the meaning as important as the sound of it.

Under that flag the band reaps a modest recognition in the worldwide Underground, when in February they release their two-track promo, "Promo 2001". The reviews are all (and they're large in number, from Indonesia to Poland to the USA) quite encouraging and Johannes does some interviews. This promo is a roughly mixed foretaste of their debut-CD "Distorted Massacre: Fear The Madness". The disc is recorded, as far back as Sept./Oct. 2000, in Gauw, Holland by Jan Switters and Eduard Hovinga (ex-frontman of Elegy). They record a selection of the great source of material, which is created in almost 5 years of existence. Older compositions are put under heavy reconstruction and the new songs are seriously written with precision and passion for (metal-)music, causing the final product to have a mature and heavy sound.

The guitars are mean, at times screechy, sometimes brutally heavy, the bass, furiously growling, delivers the songs the needed aggressive heaviness, the drums are pounding technically skilled and tight and the vocals deliver the final blow with the variation and slight insanity which are put in them. Though it's especially the liveshows the band is known for. Because of the tightness, but most of all of the members' visual presentation and the at times almost cabaretesque introductions to the songs. In their own province and surroundings the band builds up a decent following this way, but it's absolutely not as far as they only want to go. Mortuary I.O.D. is shopping around already for a tour of some kind, both national and international. They enthusiastically take part in today's Undergoundscene, be sure not to miss this!