Pentagram – Eternal Life of Madness
Release Date: 26th April 2024
Label: Listenable Records
Bandcamp
Genre: Thrash Metal, Death Metal.
FFO: Slayer, Sodom, Demoniac, Kreator.
Review By: Carlos Tirado
Do you miss the old days of Thrash? Remember when everyone simply focused on letting their anger go without much of a second thought? If so, then Pentagram (not that Pentagram) has something to offer you. It had been ages since I listened to any retro-Thrash that made me excited. However, I dove into Eternal Life of Madness hoping for something more than just a nostalgic trip back to the golden era of Thrash (the 80s, duh!).
The easiest way to describe the sound of this album is as if Slayer and Sodom had recruited a Death Metal vocalist and decided to make their songs sound like old Metallica – long. There’s nothing inherently bad here; it’s all familiar territory we’ve explored before, and most of it is enjoyable. I’m not sure if it hits as hard as it did 40 years ago, but it’s certainly safe material. If you ask me, the album is too safe and sticks to one emotion: anger.
The performances are solid, but don’t expect anything too surprising. This is old school Thrash. The palm-muted riffs and direct drums are present from beginning to end. Perhaps the vocals are the most interesting part for me, since I’ve always wondered what Slayer would sound like with a meaner singer – nothing against Tom, though. As you can tell, I don’t seem too excited about Eternal Life of Madness so far. Let me elaborate a bit.
I’ve mentioned before, nothing here is bad, except for the mix, which, as usual, could be more dynamic and have more room to “breathe.” It’s just not an album that I find myself coming back to, since I have a whole history of old 80s and 2010s Thrash to revisit that either do the same thing better or simply add new twists to the formula. There aren’t any riffs from Eternal Life of Madness that stick in my head, not because they’re lame, but because they blend in with the riffs, they took inspiration from.
So, if you want to take a quick time travel trip to old Thrash but hate the 80s production and sound (a totally valid complaint), then this might interest you. But if you want to feel young again and relive the good old days, you’ll have to keep waiting.
(2.5 / 5)
