The Obsessed

After departing Saint Vitus, the group whose overt devotion to Black Sabbath helped establish the foundations for the sludge, stoner, and doom metal subgenres that emerged during the 1990s, vocalist and guitarist Scott "Wino" Weinrich revived the Obsessed, the ensemble he had originally launched in Washington, D.C. during the early 1980s before his time with Saint Vitus. The initial configuration featured bassist Mark Laue and drummer Ed Gulli, who had already captured a live EP with the band in 1984, although their first complete album, The Obsessed, did not appear until 1990 on the independent Hellhound imprint.

Lineup changes followed, with Melvins drummer Dale Crover among those who spent time in the group, before bassist Scott Reeder and drummer Greg Rogers came aboard to record the 1991 successor Lunar Womb. Reeder soon departed to join Kyuss, at which point Guy Pinhas stepped in on bass just as the Obsessed secured a contract with Columbia. Despite being widely regarded as the band's most cohesive effort, 1994's The Church Within marked their final release. In the aftermath of the split, Pinhas and Rogers established Goatsnake, while Weinrich launched a new project initially called Shine before quickly renaming it Spirit Caravan.

Southern Lord assembled a set of unreleased tracks and rarities titled Incarnate in 1999, then in 2000 combined the original The Obsessed album with the 1984 EP from the first lineup. Throughout the 2000s Weinrich explored multiple endeavors, among them a return to Saint Vitus and a contribution to Dave Grohl's all-star metal effort Probot, before announcing in 2012 that he would reassemble the Church Within-era Obsessed for select festival appearances. By 2016 he had decided to reactivate the Obsessed on a permanent basis, though with a fresh rhythm section of bassist Dave Sherman and drummer Brian Costantino alongside his own vocals and guitar. The revived lineup signed with Relapse Records, which issued Sacred in April 2017 as the group's first full-length studio album in 23 years. Bassist Dave Sherman passed away on September 7, 2022, at the age of 55.