Band:	Gorgoroth
Album:	Pentagram
Style:	Black metal
Release date:	October 12, 1994
Guest review by:	Prugor

01. Begravelsesnatt
02. Crushing The Scepter (Regaining A Lost Dominion)
03. Ritual
04. Drømmer Om Død
05. Katharinas Bortgang
06. Huldrelokk
07. (Under) The Pagan Megalith
08. Måneskyggens Slave

With the original line up underway, this is the debut release from Gorgoroth, one of the highest respected and foremost one of the most intense Black Metal outfits to come out of Norway. This album however follows the same path that nearly all are doomed to have followed, the poor quality of recording. Though, it doesn't hamper it much, this album isn't their strongest either. It suffers from low quality, as I said, and a short play list in minutes, in fact it runs about twenty nine minutes if I'm not mistaken. With that said, lets move onto the more interesting parts of this recording. Personally, it's not my favorite recording, its actually my least favorite album from Gorgoroth.

This album does use a lot of the underground qualities of the Norwegian Black Metal Scene, intense, fast, and over all obscure, it captures exactly what the band was trying to do at the time. Make pure Black Metal. The vocals are the best part of this recording, they are raspy, growled, and often sound like the wicked witch of the west assaulting those poor munchkins. At this time, it was Hat doing the vocals for Gorgoroth, Goatperverter was doing the drum work, Samoth was doing bass, and the only original member left to date, Infernus is doing the guitar licks. Which, I might add, the guitar work is pretty decent, even for a lower quality recording such as this one. Another strong point of this album is the fact that it rarely changes, it keeps its consistency with each song and doesn't loose it's self in a flurry of harmonic misshapenness. Thought sometimes that might be an annoying and characterless trait, for this band and their first major release, it was a strong and valid point in their style, which later would be a stable point for their musical careers.

Here comes the ass-kissing part, my personal favorites of this album. As I said earlier, I like the consistency and the repetition. It makes for a good listen when you want intense, speed driven, and raw black metal at its best. Another part that I find interesting is how Infernus uses the guitar, its fitting and its grinding, even then when he was younger, he knew how to play his instrument and how to horn his skills. In this day and age, that something very hard to do.