If low down, dirty rock ‘n’ roll with a doom backdrop is your thing, then The Obsessed; the devilish trio of Wino, Brian Constantino and Dave Sherman; should be your favourite band. Slow of tempo, heavy of riff and borderline psychedelic, The Obsessed deal in the sort of amped-up, herbally-enhanced Sabbath worship that makes you want to fall to your knees and give thanks to all that is unholy. ‘Sacred’, the band’s first studio album in more than two decades, is everything you want from the band – twelve tar-drenched tracks, each one threatening the listener with a contact high as it taps into the very essence of heavy metal.
Opening with the multi-faceted riffing of ‘sodden Jackal’, the band get off to a flying start, Wino sounding inspired as he barks out the lyrics over a riff that threatens to undermine the foundations of whatever building you are in. As thick as molasses in winter and as grimy as a discarded mackintosh, ‘Sodden Jackal’ is a bristling beast that is rudely cast aside by the ferocious ‘punk crusher’, a tightly wound blast of road-rock complete with reverb-drenched solo torn straight from the pages of Easy Rider. The album’s title track, as befits its status, is a bass-led monstrosity, all lysergic leads and coruscating percussion. Both Brian Constantino (drums) and Dave Sherman (bass) deliver ferocious performances, but it’s Wino, whose corrosive guitar gets everywhere, who’s the star of the show, his maniacal cackle evident as he lays down another glorious solo. Whatever you’re expecting next, un-reconstituted punk would probably not be on the list and yet that’s precisely what the simple riffing and foot-on-the-monitor attitude of ‘daywire’ offers. Straight up, full-throttle attitude, ‘Daywire’ still manages to cram in an impressive solo before ‘perseverance of futility’ appears in a haze of patchouli. Closer in spirit to the blues, albeit the blues of The Rides as they covered Iggy pop’s ‘search and destroy’, Wino’s guitar is tough, gnarled and yet awash with a hoary nostalgia that is only given greater weight by a powerful solo that offers both depth and soul. The first half of the record concludes with a cover of Thin Lizzy’s ‘it’s only money’ which fits perfectly with the blues-infused rock of the preceding track.
With its sinister rattles and howling riff, ‘Cold blood’ sets the second half of the album ablaze from the off with Wino’s greasy riffing and Dave’s thunderous bass running roughshod over Brian’s chrome-plated percussion. An instrumental track it sees the band put the collective pedal to the metal before the syrupy bass-line of ‘stranger things’ draws the band into a more traditionally-minded rock ‘n’ roll track with a spacey Hawkwind edge. Filled with stoned drones and echoing leads, ‘stranger things’ is a head-trip highlight of the album and it leads nicely to the wah-infused, Southern-styled rock of ‘razor wire’. With elements of Clutch infused into its genetic make up, ‘razor wire’ benefits from a memorably simple chorus which will do its best to lodge itself in your over-loaded cranium. The song ends abruptly, leaving plenty of room for the Sabbath-esque ‘my daughter my sons’ to emerge from Brian’s earthquake-inducing drums. A surprisingly upbeat track, ‘be the night’ would have ruled the airwaves if it had been released twenty years ago with its simplistic melody and frantic riff. Whilst the charts may be forever barred, this is still a headbanger’s dream and there’s no question that its gnarly riffing and sweet solos will set the mosh pit alight. Final track, ‘interlude’, is an instrumental that barely starts before it fades away to naught leaving you wondering if the band have purposefully left the album with unfinished business in the anticipation of recording a follow-up… we can only hope…
Although there are one or two songs (most notably ‘cold blood’) that have a tendency to outstay their welcome, the bulk of ‘Sacred’ represents Wino and his troops of doom as inspired veterans, their experience giving weight to a series of blisteringly brilliant vignettes that are destined to get heads a-banging everywhere. Rooted in classic metal and punk, ‘Sacred’ is a tough, heavy album and a welcome return from a band long-thought relegated to the world of the resigned. Beautifully packaged (with foil-blocked lettering on the digi-pack) and given a warm, rich production job by Frank Marchland, ‘Sacred’ is a love letter to the very genre of metal and should be embraced as such. 8
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