Intro/Thanks:

My, my, my.

I often remark about the privilege and honour felt in being given the opportunity to review many, most or heck even all gig reviews via Inner-Strength Check. But tonight? Tonight was something truly special.

It goes without saying that Possessed are one of, if not the most influential bands in my listening and gigging canon. If you’ve been following along for any measure of time, it doesn’t take a degree in rocket science to figure out that the varied, soulful, cathartic and brutally powerful realm of death metal is one of my favourite metal sub-genres.

Growing up and getting into metal through the probably-typical millenial from-Tony-Hawks-Pro-Skater-soundtrack-to-nu-metal-and-heavier pipeline, I distinctly remember Seven Churches popping up everywhere the pre social-media research took me. The big one, the progenitor, the godfather of this most beloved musical apostates.

A must-listen, or at the very least acknowledge as where the whole shebang had essentially been started - an album I’ll be thankful exists until I’m worm-food.

Thus it’s with great pride, hair-thinning re-writes upon rewrites and much writer’s deliberation that I finally bring you our review of Possessed’s inaugural Melbourne show, alongside established DM locals In Malice’s Wake.

As noted yesterday in our Gallery of Brewicide photography showcase (which you can check out right here, if you haven’t already!), we recently interviewed Jeff Bercera (vocalist/frontman) on our podcast (here’s a link for that one). Jeff’s curiosity, love of the scene and curiosity about our shores are palpable throughout.

Bercera and Co. have indulged their curiosity - if you’re similarly interested in how things went down on Halloween at the Croxton Bandroom, read on!

Necessary HUGE thank-you’s to: Richie Black Photography, Dysie and crew of Hardline Media, John ‘One Man Army’ Howarth, the aforementioned venues’ staff and most importantly, the fine folks in our headliner and supports.

Links for relevant stakeholders are of course included at the bottom of this article - please give these guys a cheers and check out their stuff if you enjoy what’s on offer here.

Support your local scene!

Peace, Love and Seven (Smoldering) Churches - Brady.

Event: Possessed ‘Seven Churches’ 40th Anniversary Australian Tour, 31st October 2025

Venue: The Croxton Bandroom, Melbourne (AU)

Artists: Possessed (US), In Malice’s Wake (Melbourne, AU)

Writer: Brady Irwin

Photographer: Richie Black Photography

Stoke Level: Immeasurable

Surely I wasn’t the only en-route to tonights’ gig with the implicit knowledge that a live rendition of Seven Churches, one of the most influential death metal albums of all time, would be orders of magnitude heavier in the flesh. Granting that this is pretty much a given with how metal shows manifest? The end result nevertheless still very much tore, mangled and eviscerated my preconceived expectations into tatters.

Expectations that were high, for obvious reasons.

But, before the shredding of archetypes - we of the Melburnian metal flock had our own archetypes present with local supports and very lucky-ducks whom landed the singular support slot prior to the godfathers of death metal.

Ordinarily, this might be (and I’m sure secretly was) anxiety-provoking shoes to fill.

However, as with picks such as Mason supporting Testament, In Malice’s Wake are a safe bet in terms of their own familiarity, confidence and ease with both their craft, showmanship and relationship to the local scene.

A band everyone who’s reading this from Victoria’s capital city has probably both deliberately and inadvertently seen more times than they count, the well-worn treads of both their stage-shoes and our ears didn’t detract from an impressive performance. Juiced up by the aforementioned privilege, this local-metal institution seemed to have upped the intensity dial to the point of ripping it right off. As with our headliners, overall there was little space for verbal tirades or fanfare - just a brandishing of our homegrown metal chops.

With a head mostly craned towards the mic to snarl sweet harsh words of ‘Unbound Sinful Light’ and more from most recent LP The Blindness of Faith (alongside a discography charcuterie in general, naturally), Shaun Farrugia (vocals/guitars) took every opportunity between barks to romp around the stage like a death metal carousel. When not busy rifling off an endless cascade of corrugated riffage, backing-vocal snarls and requisite up-tempo shredding, Leigh Bartley (lead guitar) was as much an endless mop of headbanging hair as his bassist compadre Karl Watterson.

Complementing the fretted frenzy of whirling hair and notes was Mark Farrugia, who flitted between an expression of focused intensity and ear-to-ear grins as he bashed, belted and smashed out some fiercely hard kit-smacking.

Given their omnipresence on local lineups, I was honestly impressed and grateful for the lads’ sizeable turnout. It’s an easy call for some to make to just stick to the main event when there’s only a couple of acts on the bill, but the filling room was all hoots, hollers and appreciative applause, gang-chanting, windmilling and beer-raising as though these dudes were a surprise new find for the room. Nice one, Melbourne!

Thankful that the Croxton Bandroom was for once not that strange-feeling mix of expansive and sardine-packed when proper crammed, moving around the venue for necessities (a requisite pint, a peep and purchase at the merch table, how-ya-garn’s to fellow locals, etc) it was readily apparent that IMW had elevated the atmosphere to electric in preparation for the main event.

And thus, after some classic At The Gates and Morbid Angel tunes under blue lighting, it was time for all good metal folk to experience a truly harrowing (in the most positive sense) Halloween gift.

Save for the John Carpenter-esque strains of synth as the lights wavered to a truly Satan-friendly shade of rouge, there was little to no fanfare from Jeff and crew as they donned the stage. Instead, we simply cop an immediate face-bashing - one which relented with almost no reprieve for the next hour-plus. No still necks, no easing-off of the circle pit, no tyre-kicking. Just a brutal and relentless barrage of American death metal godhood.

Now. It’s at this stage of the review you’re likely expecting a clean, ordered rifling-off of the album and additional tracks, yeah?

Well, for that I say you can head over to setlist.fm or just listen to the album. Nay, given the frantic and chaotic nature of this high-speed blitzkrieg of original, bona-fide old-school death metal, let’s chop it up and make a mince patty out of this badboy.

Speaking of badboys - wheeling himself onstage with a mirthful grin, a “check-check, how you doin’?”, the eye-patch (and later, mouth/face full of blood-red) sporting Jeff Bercera (vocals) looked every bit the consummate Halloween frontman as his brief introduction gave way to pained high-register shrieks, snarls, howls and roars from a time four decades past.

From the mournful wails of '“Nowhere to run/Nowhere to hide” during the brief repose before things get real Donkey Kong on us for ‘Tribulation’s second half, through to endless gang-chant calls (“Six-six-six!” during none other than Seven Churches’ title-track), the man was as raw and animalistic with his feverish screams as he was filled with small spurts of verbal gratitude and appreciation throughout the set.

I stress the words ‘small spurts’ - our frontman had largely forgone opportunities for lengthy diatribes in favour of snappy calls for tracks, and some genuinely sincere commentary on how much he’s enjoyed “How fucking real you guys are down here in Australia!”.

Man’s not got much time, either. There’s a LOT of material for them to work with, tonight.

Busying themselves with the full gamut from Pleasure To Kill-esque thrashing death (‘Burning In Hell’) to pure flat-stick fury (‘The Exorcist’), guitarists Daniel Gonzalez and Claudeous Creamer brought the white-knuckle intensity of young Possessed’s shred-heavy riff-work kicking and screaming into the modern era.

In the classic faster-is-better tradition of thrash-inspired 80’s death, blistering tremolo-runs (such as those during ‘Evil Warriors’ and ‘Holy Hell’) abounded, punctuated with only the briefest of t h i c c slamming breakdowns that have been a death-metal groove staple ever since.

The crowd (and myself) responded accordingly. Struggling like a marathon runner in the final innings, it was all I could do but shift from full head-swivel to epileptic head-bobbling in foolishly attempting to keep up with the brutally relentless, reverb-heavy snare of drumkit-dynamo Chris Aguirre (“I love you, Crispy!”, notes Jeff). The punkish origins of death metal are felt in force here, the aforementioned Kreator comparison feeling even more apt as the man spent as much time rolling like a pig in tom-mud, Ventor-style, as he did maintaining a real d-beat snare-belting that was ceaseless, save for china and cymbals being given what-for in the styles endless skins-hitters have adopted since.

Now, not get elitist or anything (this ain’t a Metal-Archives forum - thank Satan) but words can’t express the Cheshire-cat grin I had as a bassist watching Robert Cardenas lock all this up and harmonise at warp-speed playing fingerstyle. I’m no hater on pick playing, but to see such a blistering and endless lock-step through the endless stream of tracks, tracks, tracks was nothing short of impressive in terms of understanding just the sheer stamina involved. Much like his fellow fretboarders, Robert proved his curriculum vitae in live form, wildly gnashing and whirling physically, sonically punching the odd below-belt gut-bust in and out of the endless din with ease.

There’s echoes of everything that was to eventually follow through in the genre, tonight. Megadeth-ian fret-bounced intros and guitar/bass sweep riffs (‘Seven Churches’ - “RING THE BELL!”), flat-stick/no-nonsense go-faster decimation (‘Satan’s Curse’), power chord chugging between speed-runs (‘Twisted Minds’) and naturally, a crowd-wide call-response to the titular track of our beloved genre itself, ‘Death Metal’!

Throughout, the band ultimately lean more into the punk-rock shut-up-and-play-as-many-as-you-can school of performing, whirling and headbanging in unison throughout as they do so. But it’s not without banter or sincerity, with Jeff schlocking about us missing the whole rapture/apocalypse thing (“it’s been and gone man, sorry, y’all missed it”), inviting us to celebrate Halloween alongside his own blood-soaked face with dance (“It’ a ‘Seance!’ - dance to the Seance!”), or the endless happy-go-lucky waves at audience members when not curled into a ball of snarls and howls.

Naturally, with all of this (and EP/discog cuts such as the aforementioned, ‘The Eyes of Horror’ et al) going on, a four-decades keen audience were appropriately whipped into frenzy. Few heads were craned back in that stiff lock of so-serious consternation. Nay, instead, the circle-pit was a furious washing-machine from go to woe, the entirety of the audience a sea of unrelenting cheers, jeers, howls, returned gang-chant’s/oi’s and focussed headbanging throughout.

With shows like Blood Incantation on the horizon soon, we’re not so gently reminded tonight about what a true old-school show looks like, least of all from one of the vanguards. A show that is utterly devoid of modern proggy overtures, multi-multi-tracking and measured ambience. Instead, a ceaseless mass of movement from onstage, from those fixed in place desperately trying to bob to every snare thwack, through to the Guttermouth-show-on-PCP that was a perennially spin-cycled and sizeable mosh/circle-pit.

I personally lasted about two songs’ worth in there, but know a few who kept it up throughout - and they certainly weren’t alone in the sweat-drenched endeavour! More than a few brave souls staggered out the tail-end with a sheen of mosh condensation. Well done, troops.

And with one final ‘Swing of The Axe’, eventually all good things must come to an end. Erupting in applause one final time as we’d done so in every spare skerrick of silence tonight, we felt (and were told of directly) the bands’ sincere appreciation for being a country that evidently knows and loves their death metal.

Marred with personal and family health challenges, online controversy and the everyday challenges that one faces living with a disability, Jeff Becerra was as youthful and spirited in his ravage of the mic and stage as though this was their first gig way back when. A true testament to the staying power of heavy metal, the man is living proof that death metal isn’t a burden, nor even a negative trope (even though the Reagan era had admonished him and others as such in their nascent years).

Happy as a clam whilst bleating about Satanic tropes, Becerra has spawned a whole movement of folks who provide clear evidence one can screech and roar in air-murdering destruction but also practice humility, compassion and togetherness.

Complemented by a troupe of players with more collective musicianship experience than some entire scenes, the grins, bows, horns, fist-pumps and hand-shakes were equally abundant from all members both before, during and after tonight’s devastating set.

In closing - rather than be a thing resurrected from a crypt and shambled onstage, the live rendition of Seven Churches tonight proved a hellish and almost Lovecraftian sentiment. Death metal was spawned here, less as an identifiable monster and more an ever-growing, omnipotent, powerful cosmic force.

May that force permeate the cosmos evermore - eternal hails to Possessed, and to death metal.