Legacy
Possessed are often cited as the first death metal band, largely because of the early use of grunted vocals, ultra-fast drumming and guitar tremolo picking as previously noted. In the 2004 book, "Choosing Death: The Improbable History of Death Metal and Grindcore", Jeff Becerra staked claim to creating the "death metal" nomenclature in 1983. The band's efforts on Seven Churches have been called an influence by groups like Death, Pestilence, Sepultura, Deicide, Morbid Angel, Cannibal Corpse, Sinister, Vader, God Dethroned and Amon Amarth, the latter five bands having appeared on a 2004 Possessed tribute album. Possessed's "The Exorcist" had been covered earlier by Cannibal Corpse on the 1993 Hammer Smashed Face EP.
Even while the band had played only a handful of gigs in the Bay Area, they earned a huge capital of popularity in Europe's metal scene. Members of Napalm Death were influenced by Possessed and credit the band for their musical shift from grindcore to a more death metal direction after Scum. In addition to their impression on overseas death metal, the group would also inspire black metal acts like Germany's Falkenbach, Greece's Rotting Christ, Switzerland's Samael and Norway's Dimmu Borgir.
Chuck Schuldiner, who had relocated his band Death to the Bay Area to write Scream Bloody Gore with Chris Reifert, in tandem with Possessed's rise, told magazine Metal Maniacs:
| “ | Possessed was different from all the other bands who were coming out at that time. They weren't pure noise, and they attempted to incorporate a lot of different musical ideas into their songwriting, not just rehash the same thing. They were into progressing as a band, which paved the way for other groups to expand their sound and do different things. | ” |
In the book Choosing Death, Mantas/Death drummer Kam Lee called Possessed the first death metal band, and added:
| “ | When we were in Mantas, (Chuck Schuldiner, Rick Rozz and myself) still had a more Venom/Motörhead sound kinda going on. And then I remember Chuck getting the Possessed demo, and I just remember hearing it and just freaking out like, 'Man, this is the way we gotta be.' | ” |
Author Daniel Ekeroth expanded on Lee's assessment of the 1984 Death Metal demo in his book, Swedish Death Metal:
| “ | Unlike virtually all other contemporary bands, Possessed left the Venom/Motörhead touches behind, creating "symphonic" tunes, and combining loads of complex riffs and drum patterns with the rawest sounds and fastest paces imaginable...Becerra took his vocal style one step beyond anything the world had heard before, as he seemed to scream and grunt at the same time. All these ideas would later be considered trademarks of death metal, and Possessed's demo has since generally been considered the first pure death metal recording. | ” |
Possessed's association with Debbie Abono would be a "first" for both sides: Abono would be the band's first manager, and Possessed were Abono's first managed signed band. A grandmother in her mid-fifties at that time, Abono had no previous connection to heavy metal music other than as a concert designated driver for her daughters, one of whom was a girlfriend of guitarist Larry LaLonde. Due to generation gap, Abono also had limited awareness of the sometimes blasphemous themes of heavy metal, and was allegedly offended upon reading the lyric sheet of Seven Churches. Nevertheless, she agreed to manage and represent Possessed as long as Becerra and LaLonde finished high school commitments. Although the group's relationship amongst themselves and their first manager would reach points of discord and eventual termination, Abono would go on to manage additional bands in the Bay Area metal scene like Exodus, Vio-Lence and Forbidden Evil, as well as death metal bands like Chicago's Broken Hope and Florida's Cynic and Obituary.
While Possessed's first album, Seven Churches, was praised for its speed and the brutality of the vocals, the second album, Beyond the Gates, disappointed both fans and critics alike. Released on Halloween of 1986, the album wasn't as powerful and as influential as its predecessor, and the band's popularity suffered because of it. Because of Possessed's earlier material being more popular than their later work, they are most often remembered for their first album, Seven Churches.
Read more about this topic: Possessed (band)
Famous quotes containing the word legacy:
“What is popularly called fame is nothing but an empty name and a legacy from paganism.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)