The Goddess of Doom: The Obsessed

The Obsessed is an excellent American Doom Metal band from Baltimore, Maryland. The band's frontman singer/guitarist, Scott "Wino" Weinrich has led a spectacular, if somewhat unsuccessful career throughout the US's underground doom metal scene, having also served as the vocalist in Saint Vitus and been the driving force behind later bands such as Spirit Caravan and The Hidden Hand. There's no shortage of creativity from this guy, and certainly no shortage of riffs. Wino's music has always been a hard-rock influenced brand of Sabbath-derived heavy metal with a healthy dose of Motorhead in the mix. The "doom" here must be clarified as a kind with a real groove under it: more "Stranglehold" than "Electric Funeral". In addition to being a competent vocalist, Wino is a fantastic guitarist, delivering some very intelligent, rarely flashy guitar solos.

From the band's own myspace page:

Originally known as WARHORSE, the band now known the world over as THE OBSESSED formed in the late 1970's in Potomac, Maryland. Guitarist Scott "Wino" Weinrich, heavily influenced by musicians/bands such as Black Sabbath, Frank Zappa, The Dictators and The Stooges, was joined by bassist Mark Laue, guitarist John Reese, and drummer Dave Flood for it's early line-up. Wanting to have a high energy frontman in the band, the group turned to then-PENTAGRAM bassist Vance Bockis to handle vocals. The band, along with guitarist Norman Lawson, who came onboard after John Reese parted ways in 1980, continued as a quintet until 1983.

That year, with Laue's encouragement, Wino took over on vocals and The Obsessed became a 3-piece, with Ed Gulli joining as the group's drummer. The trio recorded 3 songs, a recording known as the "Sodden Jackal ep". A later single- "Concrete Cancer", was included on Metal Blade Records' Metal Massacre VI in 1985. The deal at the time with Metal Blade (or the one presented to The Obsessed at least) was putting a song on one of the compilations, and then getting a full length release- which the band did record. Due to the times- a heavy Thrash Metal-era in full swing, Metal Blade decided against releasing the record.

1990 - The Obsessed
After the first Obsessed lineup recorded an album's worth of material for Metal Blade that was eventually shelved, the band split-up and Wino moved to California to front Saint Vitus. In 1990, Hellhound scrapped together a bunch of low-quality Obsessed recordings that had been floating around and released a self-titled album. When the buzz hit Wino, he reformed The Obsessed with a new rhythm section, Scott Reeder and Greg Rogers.

While the tracks here have a decent amount of punch to them, it's clear that this isn't The Obsessed's best work--probably due to the fact that they had nothing to do with the album or its track selection. Notable live staple and Metal Massacre compilation track "Concrete Cancer" is notably absent, as are quite a few other well-known fan favorites from the early circulated demos. There's still some great tracks on here, like the biker-anthem "Freedom" (screw AMG, it's an excellent song) and the more somber "Red Disaster". The album was Remastered and reissued in 2000 with some live tracks tacked on (including a live version of Concrete Cancer).

http://www.mediafire.com/?mw9a8bmn8z5g17a

1991 - Lunar Womb

Having brought in a new rhythm section, Wino re-recorded some of his better demo tracks and wrote a few new ones along the way. Wino originally brought in a bassist by the name of Danny Hood, who died in a motorcycle accident. Scott Reeder was then hired to fill-in for the upcoming tour, and soon joined the band full-time. The second album is a monumental jump from the first, highlighting both Wino's songwriting chops and the importance of having an excellent band backing your recording. Both Reeder and Rogers do a solid job filling out the layers of sound behind Wino's razor guitar. Whereas I'm usually recommending a few stand-out tracks to check out on any given album, Lunar Womb is really an excellent release all-around. Whether it's the almost punk-like vibe on speedier numbers like "Bardo" (with Scott Reeder on vocals, no less) and the instrumental "Spew", or the spacey, psychedelic intro to "Kachina", Lunar Womb covers all the bases. Surprisingly, the best track on here is Wino's twisted attempt at a love song: "Hiding Mask" somehow works a major chord-progression and mournful, post-breakup lyrics better suited to a love ballad into a doom song. Either by ingenuity or purely by miracle, it works. Exceedingly well. If the album has any weakness, it starts to lose some of its steam towards the end, but the album's title track goes out on a strong note (Embryo being somewhat of a throwaway instrumental outro, like the average ending to a Tool album). Still no Concrete Cancer.

Scott Reeder left at some point after the album's tour to go join Kyuss (churning out their best album with him on board, Welcome to Sky Valley). Guy Pinhas took his place, and the reformed Obsessed lineup stuck around for one more album. For my money, however, Lunar Womb is still the best of the band's discography and one of my favorite albums ever. The album was remastered in 2006 with a much more refined sound and a welcome higher quality version of Goya's Saturn Devouring His Son on the cover (thank god; it was a pity to see such an excellent painting in a washed out Mardi-Gras purple/gold palette).

http://www.mediafire.com/?lsc0ttty4rk5uno

1994 - The Church Within

There was a fifteen minute period after the massive success of the Grunge bands where record labels were willing to take a risk again (cf. Melvins' Houdini), and with the sizable reputation The Obsessed had built in the DC underground scene, they must have seemed like the next big undiscovered talent. In what must have seemed like a dream, The Obsessed were signed to Columbia Records. Now backed by a major label, The Obsessed went about recording their breakout album, The Church Within. Columbia spared no expense in promoting this thing, and in fact put together an entire documentary of famous musicians' thoughts on The Obsessed. Interviewees and Obsessed fans included Henry Rollins (Black Flag), Phil Anselmo (Pantera), and Ian MacKaye (Fugazi). They even funded a music video for one of the album's better tracks, "Streetside":

Clearly Columbia expected these guys to get big. With a major label backing, MTV video rotation, opening slot for White Zombie, and a plethora of famous musicians singing the praises of this excellent band, The Church Within enjoyed massive success, garnering tons of radio play and propelling Wino and crew to much-deserved fame and fortune.

Only it didn't. Instead the album sales tanked, and The Obsessed was quickly dropped from the label before they had even had their advances fully paid (sadly, I'm not joking). A pity, because by all measures this was a damn good album. With a track like "Streamlined", it's not hard to imagine their own sound might have been "streamlined" somewhere along the way for the sake of radio play. But this is all vintage Wino: there's no compromise in their sound. For the record, the song chosen to be the band's radio single was "To Protect and Serve" anyway (why?). "Blind Lightning" gives a nice funeral dirge riff, while "Streetside" and "Neatz Brigade" continue Wino's marriage of doom-cum-Motorhead. The only track I flat-out disliked was "World Apart" which alternates between a punk chorus and some more traditional verses. It and others can be found on some of the older demos.

http://www.mediafire.com/?ll9ncorz6ltth56

Thus concludes the proper studio discography of The Obsessed. Following The Church Within's failure, Wino retreats back into the shadows, starting up Shine (eventually renamed Spirit Caravan), while the final rhythm section joined future Sunn O))) guitarist Greg Anderson to form Goatsnake.

1999 - Incarnate
This posthumous compilation release from The Obsessed includes some unreleased demos, session tracks, and other hard-to-find tracks, like the band's original 1983 Sodden Jackyl single, or the band's final release, a split-single with Altamont Nation. The Obsessed contribute a cover of Grand Funk Railroad's "Inside Looking Out" (which was itself a cover of The Animals' much better version, in my opinion). Included as well are a few session tracks with Scott Reeder and some others with Guy (the version of Streetside here has fewer overdubs and a slightly less polished sound, indicating it was probably an alternate take that wasn't mixed, but I prefer the solo a bit over the take chosen for the album). And what's this? Yes, finally, a proper recording of Concrete Cancer! Wino and a sound engineer finally give this gem a proper treatment, with an angry solo exploding out of the speakers right as the damn thing begins. Included elsewhere is a slightly more psychedelic track from which Wino would take his following band's name, "Spirit Caravan". The album was re-released in 2004 with some added demos.