POSSESSED — Seven Churches (review)

Album · 1985 · Death Metal

4.5/5 · 2019-01-01
siLLy puPPy

Riding in the wake of Venom’s monumental extreme metal debut “Welcome To Hell,” several bands jumped into the earliest extreme metal mosh pits and churned out some of the most brutal and ugliest music to hit the early 80s metal scene. Just as the NWOBHM was taking off, so too was a far nastier underground relative. One of the first extreme metal sub-genera to take off was the burgeoning thrash scene with bands like Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax and Slayer at the forefront adding increased tempos, more obnoxious lyrical deliveries, gorier subject matter and an ever increasing decibel war for more heavy duty head banging action. Out of these Slayer was the most extreme with a highly aggressive musical style and lyrical topics that included murder, necrophilia, Satanism, torture and hate crimes. With the popularity of their 1983 debut album “Show No Mercy,” it wouldn’t take much time for new bands to take things to the next level of intensity.

Having been highly influenced by bands like Venom, Motorhead, Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, POSSESSED formed out of a group of Bay Area miscreants in the Pinole and El Sobrante suburbs which found a new group of energetic youth ready to join the ranks of the most extreme noisemakers in the underground 80s metal scene. Living the extreme metal life style before they ever really got started, it all began when guitarist Mike Torrao and drummer Mike Sus got together with vocalist Barry Fisk and bassist Jeff Andrews to create some of the fastest galloping riffs laced with extreme aggressive bombast with enough distortion to raise the dead. Soon after formation, Fisk would commit suicide and Andrews jumped ship because it was just all too goddamn freaky! After stealing guitarist Larry LaLonde and vocalist Jeff Becerra from another local band named Blizzard, the classic POSSESSED lineup was in existence and the world would never be the same.

After a couple years of paying their dues in the local scenes, POSSESSED finally caught the attention of Combat Records and in 1985 they would drop their metal bomb SEVEN CHURCHES upon an unsuspecting planet. With a title taken from the “Seven Churches Of Asia” snatched from the Bible in Book Of Revelation,” POSSESSED proved to be a bigger, badder, faster and louder musical entity than the band’s initial influences and although they claim not to have been influenced by Slayer in the songwriting process, it’s hard to believe that after hearing such classics as “Show No Mercy” that it wasn’t like a lightning bolt of energy to take the band to the next level of extremity. With the release of SEVEN CHURCHES, the band would find themselves playing with some of the classic bands like Celtic Frost, Destruction, Voivod and Nasty Savage and gaining a new army of followers with each performance with their unrelenting speed, over the top aggression and no nonsense lyrical gore. A new generation of extreme metal was born.

SEVEN CHURCHES also has the distinct honor as being considered by some as the very first death metal album. After all, many of the characteristics that Trey Azagthoth of Morbid Angel would develop were directly borrowed from the blueprint laid out on POSSESSED monumental debut release. However, the 80s was a time of extreme metal nascency when half cooked broths simmered in semi-coagulated stews and all the proper ingredients hadn’t quite been added to consider it a full member of the death metal club that would gestate in a mere two years after Chuck Schuldiner released what many as well as myself consider to be the first true death metal album, “Scream Bloody Gore” by Death. SEVEN CHURCHES has been analyzed to “death” by metal historians far and wide and is now considered that essential album that connected the dots between thrash and death metal. Much like Venom’s lauded debut album that hosted the track titled “Black Metal,” (Welcome To Hell” was not really a black metal album per se but prognosticated a world in which it would exist), so too did SEVEN CHURCHES clairvoyantly predict another metal strain with the closing track “Death Metal.”

The nitpicking of metal sub-genera can seem arbitrary. I mean, why wouldn’t this be death metal? Becerra’s grunted vocals are obnoxious as hell like a pit of vipers being grilled alive. The LaLonde / Torrao dual guitar attack is filled with pummeling earache inducing riffs, scorching squealing guitar solos and the most death metal trait of all - tremolo picking. Pounding percussive drives of the drums and bass despite Sus’ obvious enervating ability to keep up with the guitar frenzies. However a careful analysis will find that POSSESSED lacked a few traits that made death metal, well complete. First of all are those very lazy drumming patterns that failed to (mostly) match the intensity of the guitar fury. While death metal would deviate compositionally from thrash, POSSESSED seemed to be in the process of divorcing itself from thrash metal but the riffs still come off as thrash metal on speed. Compositionally speaking, most of the tracks have a rather Motorhead sort of NWOBHM underpinning which allows a more familiar traditional metal feel to bleed through unlike the future disregard for such constructs. POSSESSED were well on their way and if they had stayed on target most likely would have created the first true death metal album as a sophomore release.

However, that wasn’t meant to be as the band devolved back into their thrash leaning on their second album “Beyond The Gates” before disbanding in 1987. Despite the short shelf life of the band’s actual existence, POSSESSED has nevertheless proven to be one of THE most influential bands in the metal world’s history by virtually creating the blueprints for the death metal world to expand upon. While personal tragedy would effect many of the members such as Jeff Becerra’s paralysis from a gunshot wound in an armed robbery gone wrong, the band nevertheless lived a full life in a few short years having played with Slayer and Venom and unleashing their pivotal musical gem that spawned a completely distinct branch off of the parent metal tree. Now that’s no easy task, folks. As historians continuously comb the ashes of the rubble from the past, time and time again it emerges that SEVEN CHURCHES comes out near the top as one of the most celebrated moments in extreme metal history. While the band may have had a short shelf life the first time around, this sole album has only continued to attract new generations of devout followers not only for its prescience in extreme metal trends but as a primo listening experience in its own right. Good job, guys! I’m a fan.

more than 2 years ago
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Vim Fuego wrote:

more than 2 years ago

Great summation of the origins and importance of this album, and I agree with the conclusion about it's status as not quite a death metal album, but almost.