Hailing from the cold mountains of Sweden, Xorsist presents us with their debut offering Deadly Possession. This is a solid debut with deep influence from the Swedish death metal scene of the early 90s. Fast paced buzz-saw riffs, powerful drumming, and necrotic vocals that just drip with attitude, what more can you ask from a good death metal? No plastic sound here.
The intro track is a nice horror touch. Eerie piano and ghostly singing lures us deeper into the dark forests, only to be introduced to the following track Enslaved. A heavy and hard hitting track that right off the bat just screams Entombed and many of the rather iconic Swedish death metal bands of the past. The familiar buzz saw riffs and thrashy drums that we all come to know and love are here and are executed very well. The vocals as well are fantastic, demonic in nature and filled with attitude. They’re almost reminiscent of Dead’s vocals on the Morbid EP December Moon. Ghastly and very necrotic. Just perfect. The rest of the album follows suit, with plenty of creative and heavy riffs and they also don’t shy away to the more melodic parts at all. The fourth track Gold Beneath the Sand is a great example of just that. Having that slow and melodic intro and busting through to the blast beats and wicked riffs just sound so well done. And not to mention the melodic guitar solo towards the end of the track as well. Just all around very well produced and well written.
These guys have a lot of potential, with such a solid debut album you can’t help but be excited for what’s in store with this young band. My favorite track from this is definitely the last and title track of the album Deadly Possession. I think that the track really nails that death metal sound perfectly. That balance between raw bestial attitude and the thrashy attitude that Swedish 90s death metal was famous for. At some points I forget that this album only just came out in February and not some long forgotten debut from the past.
All together this is a fairly short and to the point hard hitting OSDM album. Nothing more or nothing less. Since being from Sweden, you can’t escape the influence of the rich death metal history of that country, so any fan of the old school should give this a listen. I personally enjoyed this release a lot, and am excited to see what ever else they have store in the future.
Check the album out on Spotify or anywhere you can get music.