We promised to cover it all and so I shall. At the opposite end of what's going on in alt / punk with bands like just the featured The Classic Crime, comes Beyond Possession. Their self-titled 1986 crossover / thrash metal / skate rock punk release blew the doors off of the genre, or did it? Their vinyl legacy is small, but for a brief moment we were all able to catch a glimpse of this grinding, aggressive, Canadian band and on this release they outshine many of their peers with a very complete, appropriately short and altogether rockin' crossover classic!
At some point, most of the bands on Thrasher Skate Rock Vol. 3: Wild Riders of Boards (hey, can they make the cd booklet be shaped like a board deck like the lp was?) will be featured here. I'm actually not one for compilations, but that one rocked. Boneless Ones, Christ on Parade, Accused, COC and the aforementioned Beyond Possession leading the way with "Skater's Life" and "My Disease". That comp. was loaded with skate punk classics, and among them is this scene-famous Canadian Rockies band. Death Records released the "Is Beyond Possession" record to, if I remember correctly, very little fanfare as I picked up an early cutout of this release at Lou's Records...had the genre been saturated by Accused, Suicidal Tendencies, Dr. Know? Who knows, but this band put together a record that does well when slicing against the grain (seems like a cooking theme is coming). There was some amazing stuff going on between punk and metal at that time with legendary releases from DRI, Excel, Verbal Abuse, English Dogs and Suicidal Tendencies. Why does this record merit similar praise?
Here is why: Beyond Possession took only the best ingredients of punk and metal, mixed in some local Western Canada flavor and mixed it all up with some truly solid, crisp cooking techniques (production). "Never Nothing New" leads off and is one of the strongest tracks on the record. For tempo-change driven blasts, check out "Depression" "Beyond Possession" and "Creeping Eruption". Nice background gang vocals are found throughout this release, as is the odd, short guitar solo. At that time, some of this crossover hardcore was sloppy and garage punk in nature. That's cool, but that is not this release. Making an impressive record, for very little money, is quite a feat. Making one that is true to the genre and still has the sonic clarity that you often hope for is even more rare. Perhaps they saved on ink, by omitting information about the band and focused their Canadian Dollars on production. Whatever it was, this was a frenetic, fuzzy guitar skate punk free-for-all and twenty years later continues to stand the test of time.
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