Satanism = Christianity - "Pentagram" Review (0%)
"Satanists"... who seem to believe they are NOT Christian, despite worshiping the same God from the same Bible. They're even cuter when trying to bring their religion into black metal - a genre founded essentially by Scandinavian Pagans and atheists who couldn't give less of a shit about "Beelzebub" or "Lucifer"... unless they were busy burning down their temples and shrines, that is.
"Satanism" really is just an offshoot branch of Christianity. There's Catholic Christianity, Protestant Christianity, Orthodox Christianity, and now there's even Satanic Christianity from those who want to feel real rebellious without actually rebelling at all.
Now, the way I see it, I can overlook Satanic/Christian-laced lyrics and themes if the music is at least competent - I've done so with the likes of Incantation, Sodom, Venom and Satanic Warmaster with no trouble in the least, but as it stands I've yet to find an explicitly Satanist/Christian metal act that's any good musically. I don't want to think it's that Biblical stigma... but I may be lying to myself if I said it would.
And to that end, I took to Gorgoroth's debut Pentagram to see what their fuss was all about... and to absolutely no one's surprise, it sucks.
The entire orthodox "Satanic" black metal movement is essentially a media chimera, an astroturf that can be traced back to four or five bands, at most, many of which share members with each other like Inferanus' used buttplugs. These are Gorgoroth, Watain, Antekhrist, Dark Funeral and Necrophobic. Unsurprisingly, they all suck.
Satanism = Christianity
Not too surprisingly, like the good Satanic Christians they are, Gorgoroth dives head-first into every Christian metal cliché one can concoct, and in the end, like any true musical holy diver, the message seems more important than the music, and therein lies the crucifiable sin when dealing with religious metallers - be they openly Christian or only crypto, aka Satanists.
Funny thing is, many of their ilk that employ a Pagan viewpoint are able to make timeless and fantastic works of art without resorting to consistent pandering - Burzum, Mayhem, Immortal, Neraines, Absurd, Darkthrone, Emperor, Bathory, Graveland, Enslaved, Peste Noire - so what's Gorgoroth's excuse? Besides Infernus' prolapsed rectum, that is - some would say that's what you get for frolicking with, uh, "Catholic" inclined individuals like Gaahl, who probably mistakenly assumed Infernus was just an altar boy due to his short stature (167cm). Now Infernus has to wears diapers - like a REAL altar boy - when he performs onstage.
These goons aren't even convincing as a legit black metal act either, and instead employ all that is commonplace and non-noteworthy in their attempt to try and portray a "brutal" smoke screen in front of the listener to block out every glaring mistake that's present on their Pentagram album, and mistakes are legion.
Pentagram is what I call your "generic three-chord black metal". Basically, they - like their "Satanic" butt buddies of Dark Funeral - play the same three tremolo-picked chords for eight minutes over three different drum patterns. Alright so that is a "slight" exaggeration. They use maybe four chords. Whatever.
It's like they said to themselves after they heard Hvis Lyset Tar Oss and The Epilogue to Sanity, "man, those Pagan nazis [sic] really know how to play their instruments... let's pretend we play black metal too, so we can be part of their scene"... Then their grand idea was to take massive diarrhea shits on their instruments and call it an album. The lyrics reflect the fecal/Biblical obsession of the band, something that has already been covered elsewhere on this site so I won't re-iterate.
So in the end there was nothing at all interesting in this irritating excursion of Crusades-level forced belief. If these Satanic Christian clowns want to be taken as seriously as I'm sure they'd want, they really should stick to making a cappella chapel choirs or something. If you need me, I'll be bathing myself in copious amounts of BATHORY, NERAINES, BURZUM and GRAVELAND. You know, the band that the Satanic Christian posers of Gorgoroth and Watain call... wait for it... "Pagan nazis [sic]" because they won't worship "Satan" or whatever. Good riddance to the Bible and its proselytes, this album Pentagram at the very least proves they can't play black metal.
Pentagram score: 0/100.
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