LP Review: "Exorkizein" by Possession

Exorkizein

Dear Scandinavia,

I accept that you are by far the most metal region in the entire world, or at least you're peopled with the most metal musicians. Honestly, places like Detroit, Berkeley, New York City, and my hometown, St. Louis are more brutal and metal than you.

As has been said many times on here and twitter, I don't like your primary metal export. Scandinavian Black Metal...well I find it to be rather aptly named.

The breaking of the fantasy with the killings, the burnings, and whatever other crimes many of the forefathers have committed just to be metal turn me off.

It seems to me that you fellows have come up with a great, but unfinished idea. Lots of other bands have been able to take your framework for metal and turn it into a beautifully ugly serenade.

Please keep an eye on what the rest of the world has done with your art.

Possession 

Belgium's Possession has taken multiple extreme metal art forms and their alchemy abilities in order to turn lead into gold.

Many times the word "blackened" appears right before all sorts of other types of metal. This normally means the same thing: The vocalist is just pretty awful.

Now, Possession isn't blackened anything, they're black/death which to me means... wait...what?

But really, there's a third superlative missing: thrash. So really they're thrash/black/death and there should probably be a fourth as not to use three things to be too much like the Holy Trinity, but I'm at a loss to tell you which one.

It's kind like all four members love to play thrash metal, death metal, and black metal, but they never seemed to be able to all do that at the same time. So, there are death growls and black drones. Thrash riffs and Pink Floyd style sound effects...wait what...again?

It's rare for a band to be able get the power of Pink Floyd's effects, but somehow POSSESSED of all bands seems to have figured out the secret. It must in that alchemy book they've used to great effect.

Instead of the rather common extreme metal explosion of noise and drones, there's complexity, sensitivity, and emotion which all serve to make stronger songs than just blowing it all out like a...well you know.

Release: 4/7/17
Genre: Black/Death
Label: Invictus Productions/Iron Bonehead
Formats: LP/CD/Digital
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