Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Pentagram
Label: Peaceville Records
Release: 2015
Length: 41:58
Rating: 4/5
Here’s the eighth studio album from the pioneering band, the forefathers of doom metal, who today are regarded as the true kings of the underground in their genre, or everything that counts as the darkest pose any (random) band can strike in rock’n’roll. Pentagram shone again four years ago, when the album »Last Rites« came out. Guitarist Victor Griffin returned to the band and to the recording sessions back then, and the result was an excellent comeback record that only confirmed that the Liebling – Griffin pairing is a prerequisite for making good music in Pentagram. With that album, Pentagram finally found the missing link to the first three albums of cult repute, which are likewise marked by the fruitful chemistry of the mutual creative interplay between those two.
The new album, called »Curious Volume«, is actually a pleasant surprise for several reasons. Given Bobby Liebling’s “eternal floating”, which has dogged Pentagram throughout their career with the unfortunate trait of unreliability (in the sense of constant activity), and on top of that Bobby’s love affair with “the white stuff” (supposedly he’s “clean” now (so say the official write-ups), but our recent close encounters with the striking singer, sadly, leave us with different feelings), it’s commendable that the partnership with Griffin held together long enough to record a new album. In the four years between the two albums, Pentagram toured diligently, visited Slovenia for the first time in mid-July 2013 when they played the Metaldays festival, and last year, besides packed-out clubs, they also headlined in front of crowds of several thousand at the Psycho California festival, reaping a pile of positive reactions for how convincing their live shows are. All that energy from the stages, luckily, carried over into the studio and is now captured on »Curious Volume«.
This one sounds even more ferocious, committed and focused than its predecessor »Last RItes« did, even though that predecessor was the band’s “triumphant return” to the old musical paths and was therefore the tougher test for Pentagram. »Curious Volume« is thus an upgrade on its predecessor, and as an album it delivers pretty much everything a fan of their cult material, written largely during the seventies, could want from Pentagram. Bobby Liebling remains a disillusioned, raging demon on vocals, with a howling vocal charisma, delivering with just the right dose of annoying nasal twang, while his pose stays tightly horned. His piercing, trademark voice remains the calling card of the band’s life and work in new times too, and Liebling hasn’t lost a speck of vocal charisma. Victor Griffin brings a fresh pile of outstanding guitar phrases that could be used with no trouble on any album by the bands he plays (or has played) in: Place of Skulls, Death Row, In Graved. And more. The devil knows when these songs were written, since it’s well known that Pentagram created a huge amount of music before their debut that kept coming out for years afterwards, and »Last Rites« is no exception. Well, the guitar phrases in songs like the trademark album opener Lay Down and Die, the even more intense closer (Because I Made It), or the album’s central story (the title track), and then in the superbly (primordially authentic) doomy stompers: The Tempter Push, Dead Bury Dead, Close the Casket and The Devil’s Playground, show Griffin’s unmistakable authorial touch. Fat, grimy, thundering guitars with a crushing, hard-hitting resonance, which inevitably veer off into semitone moves in the riff rhetoric, grab you with the uncompromising aesthetic of the good old school of forging elemental riffs, and the album as a whole, together with Liebling’s incredible vocal ferocity, honestly has no flaw and therefore nothing that could be criticized. Nor should we overlook the sharp-ringing, hollow-rattling sound of Greg Turley’s thick bass lines and the furious drumming of newcomer Pete Campbell. The rhythm section works with contrasting arrogance, and Pentagram as a whole sound with a dynamic, organic quality like what we usually get at gigs. The production is fat and damn alive.
»Curious Volume« is, for a long-lived band like Pentagram, an excellent studio document that fans of classic Pentagram will take to with open arms. Let’s hope the band keeps this energy going and that the Griffin-Liebling partnership holds. Because that alone is the guarantee of real Pentagram music. When the sounds of »Curious Voiume« kick in, the loveliest realization is that the band is still capable of putting out an album at the charisma level of thirty years ago, or, immodestly put, at the level of the debut »Rellentless«.
Pentagram – Because I Made It:
Line-up
Bobby Liebling – vocals
Victor Griffin – guitar
Greg Turley – bass
Pete Campbell – drums
Production
Travis Wyrick
Track list
1. Lay Down and Die
2. The Tempter Push
3. Dead Bury Dead
4. Earth Flight
5. Walk Alone
6. Curious Volume
7. Misunderstood
8. Close the Casket
9. Sufferin’
10. Devil’s Playground
11. Because I Made It
