At the risk of making assumptions about your burg, it's a safe bet that there's a band in your general zone that sounds something like Olympia's Christian Mistress: Twin guitars peel out ahead of a powerful, almost sexual strut, and guitar-hero tangents come tempered by metal-icon concision. Maybe that crew of neighborhood revivalists has a convincing frontman, too, a would-be Bruce Dickinson or Klaus Meine waiting in the local wings. They've probably got an exquisitely campy name, too, and an allegiant flock that loads into the neighborhood bar for riffs after work on a Friday night. This sort of crossroads between hard rock and heavy metal has a history of inspired legions and full arenas; it has a present, however, of working-class lifers smoking up in late-night practice spaces far and wide.
But most of these bands don't have Christine Davis, a frontwoman who trades the tight t-shirt machismo of Christian Mistress' more obvious peers for an understated, alluring command. On Possession, the quintet's second LP and first for Relapse, her warm rasp leads the band through no-frills proto-thrash, grandiose classic rock, and smoky doom. On "Pentagram and Crucifix", she perfectly mirrors the band's chug-and-release motion, singing in tense spurts before stretching out to howl about wicked religious hierarchies. She practically coos at the start of "There is Nowhere", an existential debate about the benefits of mortality, played out over a swampy acoustic rumble that gives way to piercing twin guitars and a meat-grinding march. "I see truth in the madness," Davis roars at the song's peak. "I will chase it to my last breath." Looking at another set of contemporaries, she's the kind of female bandleader out in front of several bros that you want to come back to in spite of any stylistic morass, not unlike Sharon Jones and her Dap-Kings or Brittany Howard and her Alabama Shakes.
Those comparisons should tell you something about the caliber of the band behind Davis: Guitarists Oscar Sparbel and Ryan McClain match every bit of Davis' versatility, pairing an ear for texture and thickness in the verses with solos that are not only accomplished but also committed to pushing along the songs' momentum. The same goes for bassist Johnny Wulf and drummer Rueben Storey, the two players who, despite being the most removed from the spotlight, best provide the sort of flexible backbone needed for an album with this much range. The title track, for instance, is a resplendent and faithful cover of a song by Swedish doom squad Faith. Storey and Wulf neither plod nor overplay; rather, they saturate the song's space with low, long tones while chasing the guitars. During "Black to Gold", the album's true anthem, all five elements coalesce better than they have for Christian Mistress. Davis lends an inescapable hook, Sparbel and McClain duel like two DJs spinning stacks of classic wax, and the rhythm section pushes forward and pulls back with fists-in-the-air enthusiasm. If this band were in that bar in your town on a Friday night, most everyone would raise a sweaty can of a cold domestic and chase the word shit, fuck, or hell with an exclamation "yeah, that was awesome."
Possession closes, as you might guess, with a slow-build that rises across six minutes from a smoldering acoustic intro that blows kisses Jimmy Page's way into a glorious burn-out of slashing solos and manic drum fills. Christian Mistress pulls toward the end, Sparbel and McClain letting their guitar lines linger a little longer beside the drums. During the last minute, all of the elements fade out one by one, with a loop of Davis' wordless incantations circling above the new calm. It's an appropriate taunt from a crew that could be from your town but isn't-- largely because bands like this often aren't lucky enough to find singers this subtle, striking, and strong.
