Review by Xephyr for Gorgoroth - Pentagram (1994)

Old School With A Budget

Gorgoroth is one of those groups that I've purposefully not checked out due to a strange feeling that they wouldn't click with me, and I was certainly correct. This ruthless but short debut is the exact style of Black Metal that I struggle the most with and Pentagram isn't an exception to that. I can completely understand the appeal since the Black Metal riffs and overall evil and crushing style of the album is top-notch, but something about Pentagram leaves me walking away feeling disinterested and bored. The sticking point for me is the vocals, which even on repeated listens I just can't seem to get past. The vocal melodies are extremely uninteresting to me and they detract from the more impressive Black Metal riffing more often than not. 

Even then, Gorgoroth don't exactly do anything new for me. What I got from this album is more of a proof of concept, if anything. Pentagram shows what more modern Black Metal can be with shiny production bells and whistles and a recording studio that's higher quality than the basement of some random shack in the woods. It's very faithful to its influences, so a straight up and old school satanic Black Metal album with a few decent ideas at the end of the album is what the product ends up being. "The Pagan Megalith" and "Maaneskyggens Slave" saves this album for me since it dusts off the heavy Black Metal chug melodies that I'm very much a fan of. While this is an important classic for some, I don't think it will be for me.