Possessor – Damn the Light
Release Date: 30th October 2020
Label: APF Records
Bandcamp
Genre: Proto Metal, Thrash, Sludge, Stoner Rock.
FFO: White Zombie, Melvins, Pentagram, Slayer, Black Sabbath, Entombed.
Review By: Jonathon Hopper
With a name like ‘Possessor’ this proto metal three-piece were never likely to pen sensitive little ditties about the agonies of adolescence. Especially when the very first line of the record label notes boasts of them being “forged in the fires of Hell”.
Actually forged in London in 2013, the Possessor lads have since been as prolific as a serial killer who’s given up any pretence of a 9 to 5 workaday existence to really concentrate on their passion, releasing no fewer than five full length LPs and a further six EPs.
Following on from 2019’s ‘Gravelands’, Damn the Light starts in typically spooky fashion – a Goblin-esq tremor setting the scene before launching into the bristling Bloodsuckers.
As befitting the ‘proto metal’ tag it’s a stripped back, primal assault like a meat cleaver to the back. It’s a sound that suits them well – a wailing cacophony of cheese-grater vocals, ripping guitars and a bouncing, bombastic rhythm section; like sludge gods Melvins enjoying one seriously wild mushroom trip with Slayer whilst trapped inside ‘House of 1,000 Corpses’.
You should know by now that there’s no escape. The B movie horror tropes continue to fly through the splendidly titled Coffin Fit that starts with a horror movie sample, White Zombie-style. “You know who I am and you’re afraid, aren’t you?”
Frankly, yes.
Take it to the Grave – about as subtle as a coffin in the face – is not unlike your limbs dropping off one by one before you watch them float away on a sea of maggots and then comes arguably the album’s high point, The Strangeness, which takes a healthy swig of Entombed fuelled death n’ roll as it rumbles from your speakers like a runaway truck being driven by Lucifer himself.
As with many a B movie, things can drift a smidge at times and you find yourself wondering if you can make it to the loo/popcorn stand and back in time before the next spell of bloodletting, yet there’s always something going on to bring your attention back: From the stoner rock interlude in Razorback (like a funereal Kyuss) to the brooding ode to vampirism of the title track. The serial killer’s shopping list interlaced with a plague pit of buzz-saw guitars during Scalpel to the toe-tapping (no, really) swing of closer Return to Slaughter High.
With Halloween fast approaching it’s all tremendous fun for anyone with even a passing interest in horror or the more macabre strains of metal, from the cartoony schlock of the aforementioned White Zombie to doom, sludge and even black metal. Like a good night in or out with a really scary movie, Damn the Light leaves you feeling energised. Blood pumping, heart swelling with pride that you faced your inner most fears and survived. Then you go to bed leaving the lights on.
(4 / 5)
