«Seven Churches» is Possessed’s debut album, released in 1985 by Combat Records, with Randy Burns producing. The band had formed a few years earlier in the San Francisco area, with Jeff Becerra on vocals and bass, Mike Torrao and Larry LaLonde on guitars and Mike Sus on drums.
“`Country: United States
Genre: Death Metal
For fans of: Slayer, Death, Venom
Many consider «Seven Churches» the first death metal album, two years before Death’s «Scream Bloody Gore». There are also those who see it as thrash with heavier vocals, but back then the subgenres of the scene had not yet separated: it was simply something extreme and blasphemous, the opposite of everything that dominated the eighties.
The album rests on fast thrash riffs, loose but not simplistic drumming, and vocals that sound genuinely sick. Randy Burns’ production gives big, threatening guitars and an audible bass, without drowning the vocals. Among the violence there are moments of melody too, like the intro of «The Exorcist», which nods to Mike Oldfield, and the bells in «Fallen Angels». Mike Sus’ drumming is not technically complicated, but it keeps a steady, aggressive pulse that ties all the songs together.
Beyond those two, «Pentagram» stands out with its melodic line, and the title track «Seven Churches», full of spiralling solos and riffs that recall early Slayer. The songs seem simple at first, but every listen reveals new details.
Larry LaLonde was only seventeen when he recorded the album and later moved on to Primus, while Jeff Becerra carried on for years after the serious injury that left him paralysed from the chest down. Decades later, «Seven Churches» remains a reference point for every band that comes to death metal.
See also
See also: Death – The Sound of Perseverance and Suffocation – Effigy of the Forgotten: The Blueprint of Brutal Death Metal.
