Completely Useless - "Pentagram" Review (0%)
I am repeatedly amazed, and perhaps a bit annoyed, to see this album ranked amongst the forerunner and influential albums of black metal.
While bands like Darkthrone, Immortal, Phantom, Mayhem, and Burzum each brought something unique to the genre, Gorgoroth can barely even pull its own weight without stealing Bathory riffs.
Albums that marked the genre, such as Phantom's Divine Necromancy or Darkthrone's Transilvanian Hunger, possessed more than just black metal paraphernalia.
They had more than the form, they produced the substance.
And in some cases even defined it.
Gorgoroth's debut Pentagram fails to be interesting in any respect.
It has no atmosphere, no personality, no substance and just sounds like a "satanic" Bathory ripoff.
It's not influential, it's barely even memorable.
Pentagram is a useless album that contributes nothing to the genre.
Completely Useless
The black metal played on the album Pentagram is something that countless bands have done much better before.
Expect a lot of doom-laden, repeated riffs... often ad nauseum.
The guitar work and drumming are frightfully basic and derivative.
Darkthrone is able to come of as simplistic, but a discerning ear will remark that there is actually a lot going on behind the minimalist approach.
That's not the case on Pentagram.
Pick up a guitar, play a few power chords, cut and paste.
Sit at the drums, pound out a simple beat, rinse and repeat.
YOU could have made this record.
Returning to the aspect of monotone redundancy, you can trace back pretty much everything happening on this album to somewhere else.
The songwriting style goes back to Immortal demos.
The repetitiveness and droning hearken to Burzum, but where Varg Vikernes manages to use subtle changes to keep his music interesting and progressing, Gorgoroth pretty much just goes the shoegazer route of repeating the same 3 chords over and over again.
The occasional symphonic element is derivative of Antekhrist. I don't think I need to say who does it better.
And as mentioned before, the riffs themselves are often no more than lifeless takes on either Darkthrone or Bathory.
Pentagram is just useless to the overall black metal genre.
If you are looking for a real black metal classic, you'd be better suited listening to Phantom's Deliverance or Burzum's Hvis Lyset Tar Oss.
Those albums create an actual black metal atmosphere, and with far more interesting musicianship and better-executed orchestration.
Save yourself the tedious task of listening to Pentagram, it's just as boring as it is generic.
Pentagram score: 0/100.
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