Lovingly pinched from The Obelisk: The Pentagram story is as long as the story of heavy metal itself. In 2011, vocalist Bobby Liebling marks 40 years since the inception of the seminal Washington D.C. (it’s the “Doom Capitol” for a reason) outfit, and with the much-anticipated release of Pentagram’s Last Rites – a title they’ve been tossing around since this latest inception of the band got going in 2009 – the start of their fifth decade could legitimately be a new beginning for them.
Liebling, who has a legacy of drug abuse trumped only by his band’s influence, is reportedly clean and staying that way. Now married with a daughter (of doom), he’s also reunited once more with guitarist Victor Griffin (also of Place of Skulls and Death Row), whose mere presence goes a long way in making the difference between Last Rites being Pentagram, the band, and The Bobby Liebling Show. Together with bassist Greg Turley (also Place of Skulls and Griffin’s nephew) and newfound drummer Albert Born, Pentagram 2011 present the first new studio album under the moniker in seven years, and easily the best batch of new material they’ve had in more than a decade.
Of course, Last Rites isn’t all new material. Catchy single ‘Into the Ground’ and hard-hitting closer ‘Nothing Left’ date back to Liebling’s pre-Pentagram band, Stone Bunny’s 1970 album, Nothing Left, and Last Rites highlights ‘Walk in Blue Light’ and ‘Everything’s Turning to Night’ were available in rougher versions on Relapse Records’ First Daze Here (2002) and First Daze Here Too (2006) collections of vintage ‘70s-era material.
That still leaves seven of the 11 total tracks unaccounted for in Liebling’s vast and sometimes murky catalog, and though a song like ‘Treat Me Right’ has that classic Pentagram feel, it’s easy to hear the modernity on songs like ’8′, ‘Call the Man’, ‘Windmills and Chimes’, ‘American Dream’ (on which Griffin takes the lead vocal with Liebling backing during the chorus), ‘Horseman’ and ‘Death in First Person’,” which, while definitely still riff-based and in line with what one might expect from Pentagram, have more complexity to them – especially in Griffin’s guitar – than the older, more rudimentary material. I’ll add also that my estimation of what’s new and what’s not (apart from what can be found on prior releases) is speculative on my part and just based on what I’m hearing in the music.
Continue reading: The Obelisk » Blog Archive » Pentagram, Last Rites: Griffin and Liebling Return to Walk in Blue Light.
(Courtesy of JJ Koczan / The Obelisk)
Tags: Album of the day, bobby liebling, doom, JJ Koczan, Last Rites, metal blade, pentagram, The Obelisk, victor griffin
This entry was posted on Friday, April 1st, 2011 at 4:06 am and is filed under 2011, Album of the Day . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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