Sadus formed in 1984 in Antioch, California. The band started off playing deathrash, a style in between thrash metal and death metal, and released their debut album Illusions, which was later re-released as Chemical Exposure, in 1988. The sophomore LP Swallowed in Black came out in 1990. With their albums A Vision of Misery and Elements of Anger their sound shifted towards technical thrash metal. Despite suffering from poor media exposure, this band has been able to reach the highest peaks in the genre, due to their constantly improving musicianship. The band name was suggested by a friend of the band named Rick Rogers back in 1985. It was originally taken from the novel Dune where Sadus are judges. The Fremen title refers to holy judges, equivalent to saints. However, as stated by bassist Steve DiGiorgio: "He (Rogers) liked the sound of it and he said he could make it into a cool logo. So we chose it [...] it's not supposed to have a meaning as we don't stand for anything." The group split up in 2015, but reformed 2 years later without DiGiorgio.