Pentagram – "Lightning In a Bottle"

Does it still count as the same band, though...?

Apart from being among the big progenitors of proto-doom metal along with the likes of St. Vitus, Candlemass, Trouble, and Witchfinder General, Pentagram is also one of those bands – or rather, band names – who's been centered around the lead vocalist for the bulk of the band's (or rather, the band name's) career, other members coming and going with more rapidity than the Saturday night Red Light District clientele. In this case, said lead vocalist is renowned junkie and all-round fuckup Bobby Liebling, who, if you'd need an example of the man's level of fuckupishness, had gone through 25 arrests, 35 detoxes, and +200 hospital visits as per 2011. In 2017, at the ripe age of 64, the guy was arrested on accounts of abuse and assault against his own 87-year old mother – in whose basement he'd lived for a good part of his adult life smoking crack.

That aside, though, Liebling's assembled yet another from-scratch incarnation of Pentagram with whom he's released the band's (i.e., the band name's) first LP in 10 years. And with the risk of spoiling anything up front, it sounds like Black Sabbath, just like it's supposed to.

Yes, that is the whole big thing here, people. Along with aforementioned bands back in the day, Pentagram strayed from the Judas Priests and the Iron Maidens who blended Sabbath's heaviness with the uptempos of the Deep Purples and the melodies of the Uriah Heeps, and solely focused on said heaviness of that one keystone group. While opener "Live Again" is uptempo, its shuffle-feeling still more than echoes this little ditty called "Children of the Grave". The guitar sound is more of a crisp, vintage overdrive rather than a fat, modern distortion, the riffs are pure Tony Iommi, and even the post-verse solo and the much faster C-part are Sabbath staples. Liebling's phrasings – just like the very DNA of his band's music – are pure blues, even sometimes ending in little Hendrixesque suffixes like, say, "oh yeah, baby", adding to the old-school flavor of the whole thing.

It sounds like Black Sabbath, just like it's supposed to.

The low-2nd-step start/stop riff of "I Spoke To Death" sounds like it could have come from fellow stoner lords Monster Magnet. But of course, such an inference would have been confusing cause and effect, Pentagram being the cause, of course. – That is, until we return to Sabbath again. Because the riff is clearly based on this little ditty called "The Wizard". The more straightforward 2-chord rocker "I'll Certainly See You In Hell" could have been a Monster Magnet song too, and that's probably as far from Sabbath as things go here. Also the laid-back waltz of "Dull Pain" kinda stands on its own – that is, until the descending chord progression, which is almost a carbon copy of the chorus in this one little ditty called "Snowblind". You could've told me the solo were played by Iommi, and I woulda believed it – everything down to the fucking minor-3rd-bends are pure Iommi from his solo on that very same track. And the drum fills are pure Bill Ward.

Want some more references? You got 'em. "Spread Your Wings" sounds like Down sounding like Sabbath. Even the lead guitar sounds like Kirk Weinstein sounding like Iommi. Even Liebling's sinus-y vocals on especially "Lady Heroin" (guess a lyrical subject matter) makes me think of Lee Dorian from Cathedral – another band that echoes both Pentagram and Sabbath – sounding like Ozzy.

Now, I will gladly be in the first group of people, if nothing else, to state that there are surely many, many worse things than Black Sabbath that a band might sound like. However, I will also state with at least as much prominence that an enterprise like Pentagram – while cool, and while good at what they do, absolutely – really do sound so much like this one other group that we're transcending into the artistic territory where stylistic speculations constitute the primary songwriting engine. You might say that Pentagram does have a certain kind of personality in that its sound is so specific, but it doesn't have a lot of stand-out elements.

The ending is heavier than what Sabbath ever was, but not heavier than what doom metal would later become – which perfectly reflects Pentagram's place on that continuum and in music history.

As my trusty guest reviewer said the other week when we were talking about Airbourne: "When I wanna listen to AC/DC, I put on AC/DC". Well, I feel the same way about Black Sabbath. And the thing is, I've listened to a lot of Sabbath. CLEARLY not as much as Bobby Liebling, granted. But enough that as a listener, I start to disconnect a bit during side 2 of a deal like this.

Around the end, however, things do get hella down and doomy. The thing about doom metal is, just like black metal, it doesn't truly crystallize until several years after the genre term started getting thrown around. So if bands like Thergothon, Skepticism, and My Dying Bride are doom metal, Pentagram leans more towards the stoner subdivision. Hell, even Type O Negative are much slower and heavier. But again, towards the end of the album in question here, its penultimate title track slows significantly down, its riff cultivating that coveted tritone interval hailing back to this one little ditty called "Black Sabbath". And the concluding "Walk the Sociopath" is positively, decidedly, consummately doom, even slower and more baleful than its predecessor, its verse even slowing down a bit extra and featuring some wonderfully bleak Minor-key chords and some inauspiciously twisted bends. It's an ending heavier than what Sabbath ever was, but not heavier than what doom metal would later become – which perfectly reflects Pentagram's place on that continuum and in music history.

For those of us, then, who appreciate original, riff-oriented proto-heavy metal from when it was still blues-based, an album like this one, in all its blatant disregard of anything in the slightest resembling innovation, is still enjoyable. And for those who just cannot get enough of that little early-70s time window, it will probably be absolutely magnificent.

Rating: 4.5 out of 6

Genre: Proto-doom / stoner metal
Release date: 31/1/2025
Label: Heavy Psych Sounds
Producer: Tony Reed