Possessed

Possessed is an American death metal band founded in 1983 by Jeff Beccera (vocals and bass), Mike Torrao (guitar), Larry Lalonde (guitar) and Mike Sus (drums). They are one of the founders of death metal along with the band Death, a term they used as early as 1983 with the release of the demo Death Metal, containing the song of the same title. From the release of their first album in 1985 (Seven Churches) they employed the ingredients that Death would use on the release of Scream Bloody Gore two years later, namely: a raspy voice strongly reminiscent of Lemmy of Motorhead, extreme saturation and the foregrounding of the guitars, hammering drums, outstanding musical technique without the tracks being incomprehensible. They are nonetheless one of the first death bands to use satanic imagery, well before Morbid Angel or Deicide.