Unknown Soldier

The Lowdown
Since the turn of the decade metal had been getting decidedly nastier, not so much in the form of how its artists acted and behaved on and off the stage but most notably in the content and sound of its music. Gone were the days where bands like Black Sabbath had been largely ‘tongue-in-cheek’ with their evil sounding satanic musings, because now in its place the San Francisco bay area had unleashed a far more potent menace in thrash, who in just a few years through its two most important bands Metallica and Slayer had started to seriously push the boundaries on how evil metal as a genre could really get and it’s therefore no surprise that Slayer were probably the biggest influence on Possessed. Possessed just happened to be another local ‘bay area’ band and on first assessment back then, could’ve easily been passed off as just another thrash metal band that were aiming at the genre’s more hardcore end that was headed up by Slayer. Their debut album Seven Churches is often labelled as being the first true ‘death metal’ album and takes the direction hinted by bands like Slayer and Venom to its logical conclusion, by taking the intensity of thrash and turning it into an even more brutal beast with barely decipherable vocals. Frontman Jeff Becerra would largely get overshadowed by Chuck Schuldiner of Death just a few years later as the progenitor of death metal, but in chronological terms Jeff Becerra could take this dark crown instead, depending on how the listener views the importance of death metal roots. The Wiki article for the album describes Seven Churches as an album that connects the dots between thrash metal and death metal, which in effect crosses that all important creative bridge that most sub-genres need to get recognized. Needless to say the album has the poor production values one would expect from a grass roots release, but who cares when the album sounds like this, because Possessed were brutal for 1985! The album intro namechecks the Mike Oldfield Tubular Bells instrumental from the original Exorcist film which sets the evil tone for the bludgeoning and spiralling sound that soon comes on the classic "The Exorcist" which of course introduces us to the grunted vocals of Jeff Becerra who would go onto characterize death metal vocals. In fact additional intros can be found on a couple of other efforts like “Pentagram” which starts with a bestial effect intro. The whole album plays with the intensity of thrash and the spiralling guitar solos are some of the best I've heard from this period, but its the bestial almost mad dog barking vocals of Jeff Becerra that blow the roof and these don't come any better than on a song like "Evil Warriors". Despite its seminal status there is a certain lack of diversity here from those that might like the idea of the band mixing things up a bit, but to their credit the band keep the accelerator floored right through to the end as later album tracks like "Twisted Minds" and "Fallen Angel" are more top-notch material. The other star turn on the album is provided by guitarist Larry Lalonde who would go onto greater recognition in Primus, but in Possessed he had the perfect playground to push his musical boundaries as a developing guitarist, as extreme metal often attracted a certain type of musician. Producer Randy Burns who would also work with the newly formed Megadeth around this time as well, plays keyboards on a couple of tracks here. The album cover is the standard satanic red on black and the name seven churches is a reference from the Book of Revelation. Seven Churches besides being one of the essential death metal albums around, just happens to be the smart place in which to start listening to this sub-genre, better death metal albums would come later, but Seven Churches was the molotov cocktail that blew the gates open for these albums to later burst on the scene.

Jeff Becerra- Bass/Vocals
Larry Lalonde- Guitar
Mike Torrao- Guitar
Mike Sus- Drums

Production- Randy Burns

__________________
Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History