Possessed - Revelations of Oblivion

It takes quite a legacy to be able to release your third full-length record to the high anticipation Revelations of Oblivion garnered over three decades after your previous two, and Possessed have the prominence of death metal (arguably pioneered by their 1985 debut album, Seven Churches) in today’s metal landscape to thank for their being able to come back into the fold after such a lengthy absence. Having just dealt with the embarrassing new Saint Vitus album for the past few days, I was quite relieved with Revelations of Oblivion being such a pleasantly surprisingly well updated death metal offering from the genre’s progenitors.
Indeed, the only real semblance of their old-school thrash-infused style is singer Jeff Becerra’s grovelly and just slightly growly vocal technique. Aside from keeping the original vocal style though (which is not a detriment at all, if anything, a good calling card to signify the return of the genre’s godfathers), Possessed sound incedibly well-adjusted to the current era of death metal. The thick and well-handled crunch of the heavy guitar tones are produced skillfully to sound as crisp and full-bodied as possible in the mix; all the instruments and the vocals, in fact, are mixed in clearly and optimally to allow all to be heard clearly without overpowering the others or being overpowered. The performances the band put in are not tainted with the kind of phoned-in reluctance that many older, burned out bands unfortunately succumb to; the band play as vibrantly and excitedly as they did in their early days, as if they were as eager to make and put out this album after so long as death metal fans were to finally receive it.
While it probably won’t be considered “technical” by too many, the band clearly still have their mojo, not sounding rusty, sluggish, or hesitant at any point in the track listing, and coming through with on point performances from beginning to end on respectably fast compositions. Songs like “No More Room in Hell”, “Damned”, “Ritual”, and “Shadowcult” make as excellent of use of chaotic, angular riffing and colorful, start-stop, double-bass drumming at high tempo as any modern acts in the field. And the band maintain their roots in their connectivity to thrash in the quick snare-hi-hat bests of songs like “Dominion”, “Demon”, and “The Word” and the Slayer-esque soloing and chanting refrains on “Adbandoned”, all of which, while formulaic to a degree, are tastefully accented and composed with lots of evident expertise and inspiration rather than a lack of ability to do anything else.
My greatest worry for such a long-delayed Possessed record coming out with death metal as evolved an expansive as it is now was that the band wouldn’t be able to adapt and would come off dated or flat-out dull. Thankfully this album crushed any worry of such stubbornness or stagnance. Sure, it’s not the most ambitious or boundary-pushing of death metal releases these days and some of the songs with less flair than others can be questioned for their inclusion or lesser grooming, but it’s just such a tightly composed and satifying straight-up death metal album that I can’t really complain much. And Possessed show that they have at least been keeping up with the times and paying attention to the developments within genre they helped start and indeed do their legacy and the long wait for their return justice with a worthy offering of modernized old-school death metal.
What! YEAR IS IT?!?!/10

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