The Sanction are a heavy rock band from Hertfordshire and Essex. They formed under the name 'Proximity Effect' in 2007 with Alan Baker on drums, Steve Horne on guitar, Hayley McCarthy on vocals and Al Hill on bass. On the day of the first rehearsal, they were joined by keyboardist Andy Monk, but it soon became apparent that a permanent keyboard player, at that point, was not needed. As a quartet, the band met regularly throughout the winter months of 2007/2008 to rehearse original material, culminating in a short set at a local venue.

Alan Baker tragically took his own life in April 2008 as the band were preparing material to record. The band took a short break before deciding to continue, with a name change (to The Sanction) and Steve taking on drum programming duties for the recordings, which seemed appropriate at the time.

The CD took, in total, 18 months to record at Steve's 'home' studio and Riverway Studios (where vocals were recorded in July 2009). An initial attempt at mixing at the studio was aborted due to time and contextual issues. Steve mixed the songs at home from July to October 2009. The album will be available as a free download in December 2009. It features 9 tracks, 8 written by Steve and 'Falling' which was written by Hayley (which will be available as a download from Oct 12th). The album is dedicated to the memory of Alan Baker.

A live date in January 2009 with temporary replacement drummer Stacy Plant has also been recorded and some or all of the material will be available in the near future. Al Hill left the band following this gig, to start a new life in Scotland.

In September 2009, a new line up of the band met to rehearse the songs together with some cover versions. The line up is now; Hayley McCarthy: vocals, Steve Horne: guitar, Steve Langford: drums, Allan Engel: bass. The band continue to rehearse, (with a brief break to play a 7 song live set in December (testing the water....)) in preparation for live dates in Spring 2010.