Careful now, box up your funny shaped head and your dumbo ears. ‘The Ripper’ isn’t aiming for your neck but your listening ears and false-god dammit does it hurt. I’m not even twisted up about the -music- at all, this is a great album. What I wasn’t expecting is the sheer blaring loudness of “Conjure and Possess”, the album’s opener. It hurt! Made me eardrums writhe and me eyes bug out. I  guess the music did much the same. Possessor play a loose-rockin’ spooked-out version of sludgy, thrashing, black-eyed boogie rock that defies a natural genre description. The loud-blasted guitar tone and fired up occasionally processed vocals should initially appeal to stoner rock, noise rock, and doom metal listeners but ‘The Ripper’ never takes a moment to sink too far into any one influence.

If your introduction to Possessor was, like me, last year’s ‘Dead By Dawn’ you’ll certainly recognize this band but you’ll be surprised at the strides they’ve made in giving you more punk-ass thrashing, ballsy riffing, and the biggest grooves they’ve ever managed. Big sweaty, muscular guitar riffs really go a long way to keep the energy up throughout, especially on “Wet Cemetery”, “Lava” and the epic mountainous jam of “Earth Shaker”. “Big deal” right? Yeah actually, seeing a promising band kick out even better jams is a big deal and ‘The Ripper’ is the exceptional, energetic kick to the kidneys I’ve been needing all winter.

Stoner rock and its endless parade of variations is hard to stick with and it seems the most established bands tend to ride out on nepotism more than actual content anymore. If rock music needs anything it is big, loud and heavy records like ‘The Ripper’ to pass on it’s DNA to future generations of headbanging idiots. It just goes to show how far an abrasive and punchy guitar record goes with me, I suppose. No big complaints on this record. I’d only suggest the band doesn’t actually set out to leave me fuckin’ deaf after the first song next time.

Lacerated and bastardized 3.75/5.0

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