Seven Churches

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Possessed chronology
Seven Churches

Studio album by Possessed
Released	February 16, 1985
Genre	Death metal Thrash metal
Length	39:27
Label	Relativity Records
	Seven Churches (1985)	Beyond the Gates (1986)

This article is about a Possessed album. For the seven churches of the Book of Revelation, see seven churches of Asia.

Seven Churches was Possessed's debut album, released in 1985 through Combat. It is cited as the first death metal album^[1] and is considered a landmark of the genre (Florida's Death had been around just as long but would only make their vinyl debut a few years later). Possessed's Seven Churches took thrash metal's intensity to new levels of brutality. With song titles like "Burning in Hell," "Satan's Curse," and "The Exorcist" (featuring the famous movie's eerie title theme for an intro), the band definitely displayed a strong Slayer influence; but it was Possessed growler Jeff Becerra who first introduced the barely decipherable grunting vocal style which would epitomize the death metal genre. Among the highlights, "Pentagram," "Twisted Minds," and "Fallen Angel" have best stood the test of time, offering glimpses of the trends to follow with their surprisingly mature song writing. The album finished with the appropriately titled "Death Metal". In the years that followed, Possessed would continue to improve from a technical perspective, but they arguably never equalled the fire of this debut. Though they were gradually overtaken by younger bands, for those interested in connecting the dots between thrash and death metal, Seven Churches is considered the missing link.