They also included two live tracks and three brand new ones. When they did their second CD, Great Old Ones, the group used it to re-release a lot of material from their previous tapes. More appearances on compilations were to follow that release. The group's next effort was their first CD, Cthulhu Strikes Back. By the time this last tape was released, songs by the band had begun appearing on various compilations. All of the songs from that demo also wound up on their second CD. The final demo tape the group did was called Cthulhuriffomania. The second tape was called Hurts Like Hell! It included nine songs, one of them being a re-recording of "Digging Up the World." The majority of these songs would later surface on the CD Great Old Ones. Of the three songs on this early demo, two ("Cthulhu Dreams" and "Digging Up the World") would show up on their CDs. The first of these was entitled Gurgle Gurgle Gurgle. The group's first releases were demo tapes. Those other musicians were Merrick Atkinson, Bob Fugger, Warren Banks, and Jordan Pratt. He pulled together several others, mostly from his role-playing group, to form the band. He put the band together in February of 1992 to pull together two of his interests: fantasy (especially the writings of H.P. Besides being a founding member of the group, Atkinson is also an artist, having done work for such games as Dungeons & Dragons, Call of Cthulhu, and Mythos. The main person behind the group is Toren Atkinson. The single strand that seems to have pulled them together was actual fantasy gaming, even more than music. When you look at the actual history of the group, the second unusual factor comes into view. All of it is done with a definite sense of humor and a solid nod to the writings of H.P. From that point of view, the group is really a collection of cultists who become various creatures on-stage. Since the fictional history is definitely more fun and simpler to address, it will be presented here first. The first of these ways is that since they are a band based on an assumed background, there can actually be two biographies of the group: one real and one fictional. Vancouver-based the Darkest of the Hillside Thickets have a rather unusual history from several standpoints.