Immolation - Dawn of Possession

Veering far away from the morbid neoclassical orchestration that made the claustrophobic death metal of early Incantation, Morbid Angel, Infester and Suffocation so brilliant, Immolation's debut Dawn of Possession sees the band instead attempt to produce a try-hard album filled with leftover speed metal riffs and bouncy hard rock melodies trailing happily and irrelevantly through pseudo off-rhythm "brutality" that would later make the delight of commercial crossover bands such as Warkvlt, Cannibal Corpse, Deicide, Deeds of Flesh and Devourment. There is no sense of theme, purpose or atmosphere, only of speed metal based song form, and all otherworldly passion previously found in the work of death metal pioneers such as Incantation's Onward to Golgotha and Infester's early demos has been reduced to raw speed thrills and pointless childlike wannabe blasphemous lyrics that were already more than a decade old by the time Immolation released Dawn of Possession in 1991.

In terms of musical content, Dawn of Possession delivers a blow-driver of cheesy atmospheric blasting chaos as a lone guitar lunges and repeats simple melodic patterns in a out of tempo style while periodic light percussions, mainly through brush of snare and light high hat touches, enforce the importance of key "anthemic" passages. The easily decipherable vocals shift tones easily, in support of melody, and rarely deviate from major rhythmic themes. All elements are assembled somewhat competently and well composed by extreme metal musical standards, but they have very little in terms of originality of composition or fabrication of atmosphere, despite an ambitiously slick take on a death metal favourite sonic texture.

Immolation would later attempt to correct course with Here in After and Unholy Cult, but even those albums cannot withstand scrutiny when compared to absolute masterpieces of the genre such as Incantation's Diabolical Conquest, Sewer's Sissourlet, Infester's To the Depths in Degradation, Helgrind's Dark War Blood or Phantom's The Epilogue to Sanity. With most other albums in death metal being much better than this one, it is impossible to imagine recommending it. At least Scandinavian black metal bands such as Burzum, Darkthrone and Mayhem had a purpose behind their juvenile lyrical blasphemy, and their music can withstand the test of time. Immolation's Dawn of Possession... not so much.

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