Day: August 11, 2015

The story of Pentagram is so long and complex that a book would not be enough to tell it in an exhaustive way, so it’s enough to know that Bobby Liebling has been more or less on track for over forty years with his band, among ups and downs, name and line-up changes, detachments, returns and assorted problems. Let’s also say that, wanting to exemplify to the maximum, the band of the U.S. capital can be considered to all intents and purposes as the American answer to Black Sabbath, both for the chronological contemporaneity and for the stylistic imprint that sinks into doom, although with the appropriate heavy metal and hard rock veins characteristic of the scene stars and stripes. Obviously the fame of ours is not comparable to that of Toni Iommi’s band, if not for the quality of the discography certainly for a career with too many ups and downs closely related to the state of psychophysical health of Liebling. Today the legendary vocalist seems to have come to terms, hopefully permanently, with his ghosts and this new Curious Volume, which comes four years after Last Rites and shortly after the DVD celebrating All Your Sins: Video Vault, proves it by presenting him in excellent shape: the work indulges less in the leaden sounds typical of the music of destiny but instead draws heavily on the corrosive hard rock vein that has always been well present in Pentagram, especially when the union between Liebling and Griffin works to perfection as in this case. Here the two elderly musicians, assisted by the excellent Greg Turley (Griffin’s nephew) on bass and “Minnesota” Pete Campbell on drums, take to school several generations of rockers: the eleven tracks are as many overwhelming stylistic strokes in which Griffin lavishes full-handed guitar passages that smell of an ancient but uncorrupted class and Liebling interprets each song making fun of his over sixty (and intensely lived) years. Curious Volume is, in the end, a sort of compendium of everything that metal and rock have been able to give in the last four decades, offered moreover by those who, in the writing of this wonderful story, has offered its fundamental contribution. I’ll spare you the track by track description just saying that for about forty minutes you’ll be tapping your foot and swinging your head pleasantly immersed in sounds so authentically vintage as to appear current as never before; I cite as my favorite tracks The Tempter Push, Walk Alone, Close The Casket and Because I Made It, but I also guarantee the quality of the rest of the tracklist. In front of improbable returns of weakened bands and frankly now superfluous, Pentagram give a signal of life strong and clear, telling everyone the intention to walk by our side for a long time yet.

2015 – Peaceville Records