The band Gravestone was founded in 1977 in the small southern German town of Illertissen by Wolfgang Rittner (g), Andy Müller (org, voc), Rudi Dorner (g), Berti Majdan (b, voc) and Mike Schmidt (dr, perc). After years of rehearsing and numerous regional live performances, their music gradually gained popularity. Coincidentally, a new recording studio opened in Illertissen, and through a contact with sound engineer Hartmut Ruminski, who had started working there, they were able to record an LP in Karl-Heinz Zaha's new AVC studio in February 1979. They were the first ever to make recordings there. Their debut album Doomsday was released in the same year in a limited edition of only 1000 copies. They played a predominantly instrumental mix of progressive psychedelic rock and classic Krautrock with long, hypnotic guitar solos in the style of a jam session, enriched with dark, disturbing and melancholic sounds. After the recordings, line-up changes led to a significantly harder style, which moved more and more towards heavy metal from the second album onwards.

Their first LP is now considered proto-doom metal and is therefore highly sought-after and expensive as an original vinyl, not only because of its small print run.