Pentagram - Relentless

You're Soon To Meet The Truth Of Death

#91) Pentagram - Relentless (1985)

 1. Death Row
 2. All Your Sins
 3. Sign of the Wolf (Pentagram)
 4. The Ghoul
 5. Relentless
 6. Run My Course
 7. Sinister
 8. The Deist
 9. You're Lost I'm Free
 10. Dying World
 11. 20 Buck Spin

theme time again, for this round i chose "80s Metal"

Pentagram is another band that has a long, crazy history. i gave part of that history, up to about 1976, in my previous post about them, First Daze Here/First Daze Here Too. after this time period the band was pretty much defunct until '78 when Liebling joined a friends band. they changed the name to Pentagram, recorded a 7" and then broke up about a year later. in 1980 Liebling joined the band Death Row. they released a few demos as Death Row, changed the name to Pentagram in '84 and finally in 1985 the first Pentagram full length was released, 14 years after the band originally formed. when it was first released it was a self-titled album but later when it was reissued the name was changed to "Relentless" and the track order was changed, i'm not really sure why.
this is some great early doom. i love the fuzzed out guitar tone and Liebling has a great voice. there are too many great riffs on this album to go over them all but the opening and closing tracks had some particularly memorable parts. i don't really know what to say about this record, it's a classic and Pentagram is fuckin rad. recommended

02/13/12: Black Flag - Loose Nut (1985)

02/13/12: Black Flag - Loose Nut (1985)

 

1. Loose Nut
2. Bastard in Love
3. Annihilate this Week
4. Best One Yet
5. Modern Man
6. This Is Good
7. I'm The One
8. Sinking
9. Now She's Black

     Apparently I am working backwards on this whole Black Flag thing. This is the album from before "In My Head" it was also released in 1985. I mentioned that Black Flag had a hard time maintaining an audience due to the fact of their ever changing style. I guess at one point Hank Rollins suggested not changing their style as much from album to album for that exact reason. After listening to "Loose Nut" I would say that the closest they got to maintaining a sound was in between "Loose Nut" and "In My Head". There is a much more present heavy metal sound than on earlier releases but it also has songs that sound more straightforward punk than on "In My Head". The album was alright but it definitely didn't blow me away. It lost my attention at times. It is probably near the bottom of the Black Flag albums I've listened to but it still had a couple solid tracks. (044)

02/11/12: Black Flag - In My Head (1985)

 02/11/12: Black Flag - In My Head (1985)

1. Paralyzed
2. The Crazy Girl
3. Black Love
4. White Hot
5. In My Head
6. Out of This World *
7. I Can See You *
8. Drinking and Driving
9. Retired at 21
10. Society's Tease
11. It's All Up to You
12. You Let Me Down *

*Tracks originally from the "I Can See You" EP

     Black Flag is probably my favorite of the old school punk bands. I say this despite the fact that they  have only released one LP that actually sounds like a punk record (Damaged). There are a few Black Flag albums that I used to listen to constantly, but I realized that I had barely given some of the others a chance. I have been listening to them non-stop and there are gonna be 3 or 4 Black Flag records over the next week of entries or so. I am going to jump all over the place, but I will start with their last LP "In My Head".
     This is the CD reissue version which includes 3 tracks from an EP they released 3 years after they broke up. The songs were recorded during the same sessions and are integrated into this reissue perfectly as well as being really great songs. I don't understand why I never really gave this album a chance but it ended up being spectacular. "In My Head" shows where their sound ended up before their breakup. They started out as a punk band, but as their career progressed, their songs slowed down and became more heavily metal influenced due to Greg Ginn's ever evolving guitar sound and growing talent. They had a hard time maintaining fans for the same reason but I really enjoy their more down tempo sound anyways. It is a straight-up quality hardcore record with a nice experimental touch. A really solid collection of songs to close out a too short career.
     I have been doing a lot of reading about Black Flag over the last couple days and I really didn't realize a lot of things about their career. I will probably talk about some of the facts in other posts. I can't believe they released 5 albums in 2 years. (042)