In a recent interview with Australia’s Devil’s Horns Zine, POSSESSED frontman Jeff Becerra offered an update on the band’s long-awaited follow-up to 2019’s Revelations Of Oblivion. The death metal pioneer revealed that the record is nearly complete — and promises it will be unlike anything the band has done before.
“I’m working on the last three sets of lyrics, and then the album is finished,” Becerra said (as transcribed by Blabbermouth). “And it’s a trip. It’s a whole different animal. I don’t know if people will love it or hate it. I hope they love it. It’s different. It’s definitely different.”
Becerra has previously hinted that the upcoming material pushes POSSESSED into darker and more experimental territory. Speaking to MetalMasterKingdom.com last year, he described the new songs as “very cool, very heavy,” adding that the album will feature “a lot more tempo switching” while maintaining the band’s uncompromising edge.
“POSSESSED will never sell out,” he said at the time. “I’d rather die. But it’s still very, very heavy. It’s probably gonna be one of our darkest albums. And also something that you don’t have to grit your teeth to get through the whole thing.”
Discussing the writing process, Becerra explained that collaboration remains key within the band, with all members contributing ideas and riffs.
“We all write. I think I wrote 63 or 64 percent of the last album,” he said. “Me and Dan [guitarist Daniel Gonzalez] are kind of the main guys, but more and more, on this one you’re seeing Claudeous [Creamer, guitarist] and Robert [Cardenas, bassist] coming out and showing off the riffs.”
He continued: “This version of POSSESSED has been around more than three times as long as the first one, so we work well together. And they’re not afraid to say, ‘Hey, no, this is not good,’ to me and vice versa. We’re all super picky about what we do.”
Becerra’s story is one of resilience. Just two years after POSSESSED’s initial breakup in 1987, he was shot during a failed armed robbery, leaving him partially paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair. Despite years of recovery and personal struggles, he reformed POSSESSED in 2007 with a new lineup — culminating in the release of Revelations Of Oblivion in 2019, the band’s first studio album in 33 years.
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