Pentagram - Pentagram (2000)

Not to be confused with the Arlington, Virginia, USA doom legends who formed in the early 70's, this Pentagram was formed in 1985 in Santiago, Chile and although they never released any albums these guys attracted a great deal of attention with the two demos they released in the late 80's. This compilation from ten years ago brings those two demos plus two live tracks together for those of us that weren't around to get our hands on the original tapes.

Musically Pentagram were rhythmical relentless thrashy death metal most likely influenced by Possessed's classic, 'Seven Churches' record. With short bursts of brilliant lead work and heavy pulsating downtuned riffs, pummeling drumming, catchy bass lines and harsh proto-death metal vocals show us that these Chileans were up to something ridiculously evil back in the day. The riffs on some these songs are truly demonic, especially on, 'The Malefice,' which honestly sounds wicked to the core and I can't help but think that some Norwegians and Swedes (like Darkthrone or Entombed) back in the early 90's were fans of these guys too. Likewise some of the licks in, 'Profaner' are just heavy crushing like a motherfucker, I seriously love this shit! Also the production is muddy and abysmal, but it works entirely too well with this sort of early death metal music and I truly wouldn't have it any other way. Furthermore the two live tracks are just merciless death metal fury done the classic way and, yes, it rocks!

In the booklet band founder/vocalist/guitarist, Anton Reisenegger explains how Pentagram broke up due to their immaturity and the simple fact of realizing that no label would ever sign a band from Chile, but imagine if these guys had cut a record in '88 and its safe to say death metal's course and rise could have unfolded slightly differently.

Shortly after the release of this comp. Pentagram played one gig together playing all of these songs again, and apparently the band is still together nowadays, but not much info seems to be available on that matter. My guess is this comp. is out or print these days, but it was re-released recently under the name of, 'Under the Spell of the Pentagram' and contains a bonus DVD of shows from the 80's as well as that 2001 performance I mentioned earlier. Seems I'll have to hunt down a copy of the re-issue some day too.