TRAITRS | POSSESSOR HOT SAUCE

"If my life ended tomorrow, I would know Possessor was directly from my heart," explains Shawn Tucker. "It's closure, my closure. Truthfully it's the most personal record I've ever written."

Written on gloomy days staring out windows as storms raged outside, the album prioritised conveying exact moods and emotions, with lyrics playing the most crucial role in capturing that vision. Possessor explores difficult questions about meaning, legacy, and our collective denial of mortality—examining the psychological defense mechanisms we employ to avoid confronting the one thing that unites us all.

"Possessor is our planet slowly losing air as we all suffocate in it without noticing," Traitrs reflects. "It's knowing everything and everyone will eventually die. There's a lot of anger, beauty and sadness on the album. I want to feel that someone is holding you when you're cold, sad and alone in the dark. The soundtrack to a gloomy filled sorrowed love affair. It's unconditional, unflinching, and unapologetic."

Following the release of the album's explosive singles "Burn In Heaven" and "I was ill, you were wrong"—each track showcases the devastating emotional range of Possessor. "Burn In Heaven" erupts with thunderous motorik drums and visceral, bellowing vocals that evoke Robert Smith at his most possessed, while exploring the dangerous collision between religious extremism and medical science through the tragic story of Anneliese Michel's 67 exorcisms. Meanwhile, "I was ill, you were wrong" strips everything back to haunting vulnerability—a melancholic meditation where echoing synths and surging guitars create a spectral landscape that holds you close in the cold, confronting our shared terror of mortality with devastating intimacy.

"I felt that song connected me to everything and everyone, it's the one thing we all share and have in common," Tucker explains of "I was ill, you were wrong." "It's also a wake up call to live the life you want to live, we only have one chance at this so go dance in the rain."

Recorded between relentless touring schedules at Toronto's Wychwood Studios with producer Josh Korody (The Beaches, The Dirty Nil, Japandroids, F*cked Up), Possessor finds Traitrs stripping away all pretense—a duo with nothing left to lose and everything to exorcise. The album was mastered by Grammy Award winner Matt Colton, whose recent credits include The Cure's Songs of a Lost World, alongside work for Arctic Monkeys, Thom Yorke, Depeche Mode, Aphex Twin, and The Rolling Stones.