Send "Pentagram " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Popmatters |
 Bobby Liebling has no business being alive. But somehow, after years and years of drug abuse, he’s still puttering along, trying to live a cleaner life with a young wife and child, playing shows, and basically trying to eke out some sort of living after practically throwing a good chunk of his life away. The leader of Pentagram, one of the most important early American heavy metal bands from the early ‘70s, Liebling fully deserves to be as revered as his peers in Black Sabbath and Deep Purple, but for all the cutting-edge music Pentagram created, so brilliantly compiled on 2002’s First Daze Here and 2006’s First Daze Here Too, the mercurial Washington, D.C., band could never keep its act together consistently enough to at least make a stab at some form of success. Instead Pentagram languished in the underground, influencing a wave of new doom metal bands in the 1980s, and despite a fleeting run of very strong albums that decade, success evaded Liebling and his constantly rotating band lineup.While Liebling has benefited greatly from Pentagram’s 1970s singles compilations and a new generation of admirers those releases attracted, Pentagram’s live shows have been unpredictable and the band’s studio output has been decidedly less than sterling. The last time we heard from Liebling on record was 2004’s Show ‘em How, on which he sounded exhausted, and it seemed like we would never hear new music from Pentagram again. However, Metal Blade Records surprised everyone by signing Liebling and Pentagram to a multi-album deal late last year, an incredible leap of faith considering the singer’s reputation. But when you hear the first of those records, the ironically titled Last Rites, you realize that the somehow indestructible Liebling just might pull off the late-career renaissance so many people have been hoping would happen. Granted, this isn’t an album of entirely new material at all, as Last Rites’ 11 songs have been culled from old tapes of songs Liebling wrote 35 years ago. In fact, Liebling has gone on record saying he’s finished writing songs altogether. But considering just how many unreleased songs he has in his possession, not to mention just how good this new album is, we’ll gladly take it. Part of the appeal of this new album is just how old school these songs feel. Written in the 1970s, there’s no trace of modern influences whatsoever. Just good, old-fashioned groove, heaviness and the odd touch of psychedelia. However, no matter how good the songs are, it all depends on just how “together” Liebling sounds, and remarkably, this is the best he has sounded on record since 1987’s Day of Reckoning. Liebling sounds rejuvenated, singing atop the massive stoner groove of “Treat Me Right” with a commanding presence. “Call the Man” echoes the menace of the original Alice Cooper band, and the thunderous “Walk in Blue Light” sounds even better than the version heard on First Daze Here, but Liebling’s most revelatory vocal moment on this album might be his wonderful, bittersweet vocal performance on the acoustic-tinged ballad “Windmills and Chimes”....full text |
| Metalreview |
| The prospect of reviewing what stands as the most widely anticipated doom release in the last decade is really rather silly, considering interested parties will likely pick up Last Rites regardless of what words get thrown around by writers in the coming weeks. And rightly so, as the main driving force behind this record -- the grand reunion of Bobby Liebling and Victor Griffin -- essentially prevails as the doom metal equivalent of chocolate and peanut butter suddenly recalling how fucking awesome they taste together. (Provided chocolate were madder than a space-traveling hatter in a Lynch film.) The struggle for an incessant yapper such as myself is trying to figure out how much of the pre-Last Rites hoopla to throw into the mix before mainlining the following simple fact: this album is fantastic -- as strong (and in some cases stronger) than any of the material released since 1994's sublime Be Forewarned. But truthfully, I was sold on pursuing new Pentagram material the day I saw them destroy The DNA Lounge in San Francisco in 2009 with Russ Strahan (Land of Doom) on guitar, Gary Isom (Wretched, Unorthodox) on drums, and Mark Ammen (Unorthodox) on bass. That was the night I fully realized that Pentagram remains mightily legitimate, and that given the right talent marching alongside him, Bobby Liebling can still entertain the hell out of a crowd. Let's face it, as familiar and cozy as Bobby sounds after all these years, his actual voice isn't his strongest selling point, it's his ability to front this band and provide an entertaining show while the instrumentalists give him the means to wiggle those spindly legs. And on that night, Pentagram most certainly delivered, including a greasy new stomper in "South of the Swamp". Sadly, the all-too-familiar villain of "internal struggle" reared its ugly head (again) and good Mr. Strahan departed, resulting in Bobby tossing a guitarist into the fire with zero preparation for the remainder of tour dates. And oh, how the people suffered. Whatever credibility Pentagram built up with their fresh reformation quickly poofed within a cloud of "free-form extended jams" that left patrons bolting for the doors. But alas, rising like Excalibur from the lake, longtime friend (and the true catalyst for Pentagram's post-70s heavier sound) Victor Griffin arrived to reaffirm the ruling grip of the band. And good triumphed over the land… Fundamentally, Last Rites stands as intimate proof that the Pentagram of today needs Victor Griffin in the mix. Bobby Liebling is now sober after quite literally a lifetime of hammering hardcore drugs into a 5'-something frame, and while it's good to know he attributes so much of his current positive outlook to a new family life, the guy needs the strong stabilizing influence of an oldschool chum like Victor within the band to help balance his…otherworldliness. And really, who is better suited for the adventure than a fellow who also happens to front one of metal's strongest purveyors of righteously doomed atonement, Place of Skulls. The puzzle pieces fit, and these eleven tunes are clear testament to that....full text |
| Metalunderground |
| With the benefit of four decades of hindsight, Pentagram is now considered by metal pundits to be a forefather band for both heavy metal in general and doom metal specifically, along with Black Sabbath, Venom, Saint Vitus, and the like. Similarly to another forefather, Pentagram leader Bobby Liebling is a very Ozzy-ish figure, as both used their unique vocal styles, onstage charisma, and love of drugs and booze to gain notoriety for themselves and their music. But now that Liebling and Pentagram are releasing their seventh studio full-length (and first since 2004), it is striking how poorly Pentagram has aged. After a victorious comeback at 2010’s Maryland Death Fest capping a short 2010 tour, old school doom-sters were breathlessly waiting for Liebling’s newest slab. The problem is that Pentagram’s studio work doesn’t live up to the live performances - “Last Rites” plays like a 1970s AOR compilation, not the long-awaited comeback from doom pioneers. There are three main culprits: 1) the rhythm section of Greg Turley (bass) and Albert Born (drums) plod more than a hippopotamus on barbiturates, 2) Victor Griffin’s guitar fritters away jam session after jam session without ever riling us up or chilling us out, and 3) Liebling sounds tired. Compared to modern doom and metal in general, Pentagram is dated –an octogenarian with creaking bones who can’t get off the couch without help. Older musicians writing new releases generally keep up with the times and at least try to sound fresh and vital; Ozzy hiring Gus G., Iron Maiden’s new atmospheric tricks, and even Tom G. Warrior’s ever-changing sound with Triptykon are cogent examples of old dogs updating repertoires (for better or worse is up for debate, of course). But Pentagram wrote the same songs now as the band did back in the 1970s, and the problem is that heavy metal is so far beyond where it was thirty and forty years ago that “Last Rites” is a bubbling brook compared to metal’s modern monsoon. Nothing on “Last Rites” grabs us by the throat, reaches through our eyeballs into our brains, or even has a slap fight with our polite side. No doubt Griffin’s jams sound great live, and no doubt Liebling can get adrenaline-fired vocals to bubble up through his yell-hole live. No doubt Turley and Born carry the weight of a thousand anvils on stage, and no doubt Pentagram’s classic cuts still burn like the sun live, but in the studio “Last Rites” is old, bland, and shapeless rock that doesn’t deserve to be on the same label as some of modern metal’s burly bashers....full text |
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