Possessor are set to release their new album on 30th October 2020. Damn The Light will be released through APF Records on various formats (pre-order here).

In the run up to the band releasing their new album, we welcome Possessor’s drummer, Nathan Perrier, as he writes for us in our Why I Love column about the mighty Judas Priest.

Firstly and simply because they are the best metal band in the world. You can argue, but it’s pointless. Whoever you throw up in the argument – Priest did their best riff first. Secondly, Judas Priest were even the heaviest band in the world when they dressed like and covered Fleetwood Mac.

I’ve had numerous bar side conversations in the last 10 years with journos, members of Scandinavian vanguard bands and general plebs like me, and we all agree that as time goes by, the Judas Priest back catalogue just well, stands up and offers so much more than their other nameable classic contemporaries.

I was 13 when I got my hands on the double cassette Metalworks, and to the novice I’d still recommend it as a great starting point to get to grips with the Metal Gods.

What other band has had so many awesome world beating drummers? Priest had 13 or so before Scott Travis and included Simon Phillips among them. His work on Sin after Sin  is nothing short of mind blowing.

As a drummer unable to play another instrument, I find myself drawn to the details in production and Priest are the masters of this. It’s all in the detail. Really cracking a whip or some electric cables, slamming a drawer full of cutlery to bring the mighty stomps of the metal god to life and even slamming on a moog in time with every bass note on Painkiller – the album, not the track alone, this band invented everything Metal and that’s a fact.

Rob Halford. The self professed ‘stately homo of heavy Metal.’ The Metal God. Erudite, charming, supportive, gentle, utterly bonkers. He is a treasure in Metal. I have had the pleasure of meeting him several times over the last 25 years and every time he has been a true gentleman. To speak or have a pint with the man before watching him unleash on stage is a wild experience although he’s been sober for some years now.

Every time I prep to make a record I fall back on a select batch of bands: Rush, Mercyful Fate , Maiden and Priest. Every time I visualise or try to put across ideas in production, for me it’s always Vic Maille or Judas Priest. The band are so vital and consistently create new Heavy Metal which leaves others in the dust.

K. K. Downing and Glenn Tipton’s twin guitar attack opened doorways for all who followed, they blazed they fuck out of that trail before anyone was doing that shit in Metal. Ian Hill plays the bass like a gang of construction workers laying a highway. Pounding hot and mechanical.

Whatever type of Metal you want, they have it. The back catalogue is brimming with innovative classics and never far beneath the surface in the lyrics is the open and honest inner monologue of a man struggling with his place in society and sexuality. Probably the boldest lyrics of any band of their initial era. Always trailblazing. Always delivering the goods. I love them.

When a band has been at the top of their game as many time’s as Judas Priest in a career lasting 50 years, you’d have to be an idiot to pass them by!

Many thanks to Nathan and Possessor for their time. Be sure to check out the band’s new single below.

You can pre-order the new Possessor album through Bandcamp, here.

Possessor: Facebook / Bandcamp

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