Pentagoria were a Minneapolis-area death metal band who at first released a full-length album, and then a demo tape. A bit weird, that. They formed in 1998 and the debut '...and the Sky Bled Gore' came out in 1999. It's pretty hard to fathom what is on the cover, what the logo reads and there are no lyrics included, but a short story, which makes it even more baffling. It's just screaming at you: "Dive in, mofo!" Not the way that's depicted on the CD, though...

The album is about early Cryptopsy style semi-technical death metal ('Blasphemy Made Flesh [1994], anyone?), and somewhat reminds of early Suffocation, too. The thing that wrecks it is its songwriting, which is mostly very scrappy and not much of it gets into brain's memory center. Some riffs are just not catchy at all, simple as that. The compositions tend to branch several times each, and tempo changes are frequent. There's loads of strumming that provides just noise, and when that happens on fast beats, it gets quite muddy. The clanking bass guitar is easier to hear and it helps listener to follow this trot. The slower parts, which aren't a rarity, are way easier to perceive. There are two guitars, with occasional lead work and melody/harmony stumps applied. The performances are good and doesn't have problems with timing. And believe me, it could easily get messy as heck with all these tempo changes. The songs are 4 to 6 minutes long, and I think making some shorter and maybe adding a track or two, it possibly could have been more tangible.

The production job is very organic and homespun. There's no studio wizardry utilized, so fast beats are not as powerful than the slower ones. Especially the guitars tend to get clogged and are on lower volume than the drums. If the guitars were louder, it would work way better, since it's nice to actually hear the bass guitar, so balancing the instruments in the mix is mainly done well as they are easy to sort out. The vocals are dry-sounding growl with occasional, more screaming type of throat-lacerating. They are at times very rhythmic, reminding of Corpsegrinder-era Cannibal Corpse.

The band tried, I give them that. It's well played and does have fine bits and bops, but the songwriting is sadly very (Cryp)topsy-turvy. It does get clearer with repeated listenings, but still does have many of those forgettable moments. It feels damn frustrating to listen to, because I believe it could have been easily so much more into-the-point. This is one laborious album to listen to. Only for true death metal freaks.

Rating: 5- (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Lane
11/28/2023 11:12