vote
6.0
- Bands:
PENTAGRAM CHILE - Duration: 00:54:58
- Available from: 04/26/2024
- Label:
-
Listenable Records
Scrolling through the biographical notes of a group like Pentagram (the Chilean ones obviously, and not the ones led by the crazy Bobby Liebling) always has a certain effect: they rose to prominence almost forty years ago thanks to a handful of demos that put them in the spotlight of the international scene among the prime movers of the then nascent South American extreme circuit, our band was unable to establish itself in the following years with real full houses, ending up disbanding at the dawn of the 90s. From here, a series of reunions and new separations, which led the band to make their actual debut only in 2013, the year of release of “The Malefice”, before a new recording silence broken only by splits and compilations that only lead us to today on the second studio album, entitled “Eternal Life Of Madness”.
Immediately dispelling any doubts, and hitting the heart of the most nostalgic fans, we can affirm without a doubt that the newcomer noticeably distances itself from the combo’s furious debuts, stylistically getting closer to the debut album released about ten years ago: the death metal of primordial, in fact, today leaves room for a more placid, less impetuous thrash metal, only affected by more extreme influences which have little influence on the general weight of this work.
“El Imbunche”, moreover, despite standing out as one of the fastest songs of the lot, doesn’t scratch that much, quickly giving way to the soft average tempos of “Possessor” and most of the other songs. The general rhythm, in fact, always settles at controlled speeds, kept at bay to let a more melodic, but honestly uninspired guitar work emerge. In fact, the entire tracklist is divided between the livelier moments of “The Portal”, “Devourer Of Life” and “Deus Est Machina” and the decidedly grayer ones of “Omniscient Tyrant”, “Eternal Life Of Madness” and “No One Shall Survive”, boring exercises in style that prevent the album from taking off properly towards high qualitative peaks.
Apparently, the now consolidated militancy of frontman Anton Reisenegger in famous companies such as Brujeria and Lock Up was not enough to raise the level of his mother band, relegating it to the role of a pale example of thrash/death with little inspiration. A good technical preparation, especially of the drummer, and some references to the metal precursor of Hellhammer and Celtic Frost are not enough to make Pentagram competitive in today’s particularly fierce market in terms of revivals and historical bands still active: if they want to conquer the top, Chilean Pentagram will need something more than the innocuous songs contained in “Eternal Life Of Madness”.
