Christian Mistress – Possession

Living here in the great Pacific Northwest means that I live close by to some great music put out by some great bands.  Christian Mistress is one of those bands, in my humble opinion.  They hail from Olympia, Washington, which is literally about 15 minutes south of me on I-5.  I have had the pleasure to see them up close and personal in small clubs, which I love, and to follow their releases, from the demo that got them noticed, to their first full length, and now this release, their first for Relapse.
I really love this band, and they have really grown over the course of the release mentioned above.  This one, Possession, really shows the band stretching out and doing some different things, and the results are very good.

One of the very minor complaints I had about this band is that, while they play some great, all out, thrashy kind of stuff, everything they did was in this vein.  There weren’t a lot of tempo changes or anything like that to break things up.  This new album has some very tasty slower tempo tunes and it really makes a difference when you are listening to the album.  I haven’t had a chance to see them play any of the new songs live yet but I am looking forward to it.

Possession kicks off with a barn burner of a track called “Over and Over”.  If you have heard Christian Mistress before, this track will be easily recognizable.   But with the second track, “Pentagram and Crucifix”, the changes are immediately noticeable.  The song has a nice, doomy, ominous opening before going full out.   Then on track number four,  “The Way Beyond”, we get an acoustic intro that fades into something you could call almost traditional metal. 

Track 5, title track “Possession”, is a slower tempo track that really showcases the songwriting skills of the band and was my favorite on the album.  The lyrics are great and it is definitely a side of the band not heard previously.  “Black to Gold”, the sixth song on the album, is not some sort of ode to my beloved Pittsburgh Steelers, but it’s a very good up tempo track to get things raging again after a few slower songs.  And the final 3 tracks of the album deliver the kind of music that Christian Mistress are known for.

When I heard that the band had signed to Relapse I was hoping the jump to a larger label would pay some dividends for the band, at the very least getting them some more exposure.  Hopefully that will happen, and the album seems to be well received.  But it also seems that the jump has paid off for them in terms of growth as a band all the way around.  Great release from a band that more of us metal heads should know about, so go pick this up and you’ll be happy you did.  You have my word on that. 

-- ODIN

Christian Mistress - Possession

 (Re-presenting a Horn review originally published on The Soda Shop)

Very like The Devil's Blood (i.e., highly capable female singer with traditional doom metal/ rock music background), but more 70s rock/metal, less 70s rock/pop. If that made any sense.

Shut up. You read this site. You knew very well what I meant.

"Over and over," a satanic T-rex, a heavier Kansas... "Pentagram and Crucifix," almost like a track from Danzig's eponymous debut (and very nearly as sweet) with its alternating time (i.e., downbeat to forebeat in the verse)... "Conviction" is an (improbably) Y&T-like ripper....

"The Way Beyond" fires up a lap steel-laced acoustic intro and slows things down for a minute or two, before igniting a "Children of the Grave"-esque riff--

seriously, if you're reading this site, you love stoner/doom riffs. This track alone would complete you sexually:

Guys: you could poke holes in a board with your dick after this one; girls, you could drown a toddler in your panties/knickers.

"Possession" has a great slinky riff not unlike (ironically) Danzig's "Possession,"  (though it's only reminiscent of it, at best), "Back to Gold" rocks and sways its hips like the best delta blues (Albert King, whaddya think of this?); "There is Nowhere" opens like a continuation of the end of "Symptom of the Universe" (funky, semi-tribal acoustics), "Haunted Hunted" has some freakin sweet twin lead harmonies, and closer "All Abandon" just rocks all-out, NWOBHM-ishly, then closes out this badass baby of a satanicish rock/ metal record with a dissonant, diabolus in musica of a final melody/riff.

All tracks, too, are nicely concise and brief (almost like they were radio-ready! ha! remember that?). No self-indulgent 10-minute tracks here. They can write songs and they do. It's a nice change from most doom/ metal acts.

All in all: this is really fun doom/stoner/tradition metal. And I'm sober as a nun right now.* Imagine if you were otherwise.

*He said, despairingly.

--Horn

here's the original article: http://thesodashop.wordpress.com/2012/01/27/review-christian-mistress-possession/