This is an excerpt of a feature article in the same "History of Metal" magazine that the previous interview is from. This one is much less sensational.
Around the same time (1984), a bunch of Slayer/Venom fans from the San Francisco Bay Area got together to jam on some tunes, in the process creating some of the most savage sounds ever heard this side of the Atlantic. Possessed was their name, and by 1985, less than a year after the release of their now-classic 3-song demo, the group was signed to New York's Combat Records, who issued the group's debut LP, "SEVEN CHURCHES", later in the year.
"As far as I'm concerned, "SEVEN CHURCHES" was one of the most ground-breaking death metal records ever," stated Chuck Schuldiner, who admits to having been inspired by Possessed's mixture of strong musicianship and sheer aural ferocity. "Possessed were different from all the other bands who were coming out at that time in that 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."
The impact created by Possessed's first effort coincided with a worldwide surge in interest in the more extreme forms of metal, with the likes of Destruction, Sodom, Kreator (all from Germany), Bathory (from Sweden) and Celtic Frost (the post-Hellhammer band of Mr. Fisher and bassist Martin Ain) all achieving reasonable success with their recorded efforts. The record sales grew, as did the fan-base, and this led to more and more bands getting signed and issuing albums through the increasing number of independent record labels in the US and abroad.
(end of Possessed inclusion)
- by Borivoj Krgin