The Shining Pentagram

The fact that this is reportedly Dani Filth's favorite Necrodeath release says a lot about the guy's uber-kvlt tastes, much moreso than many modern blacksters using him as the scapegoat for all evils within the black metal scene since the late 90's. This is indeed the first thing these sick Italians recorded under the Necrodeath moniker (after the brief, and rather disastrous, experience under the Ghostrider moniker), and it's still a cult classic for valid reasons, already possessing many of the band's trademark elements - even though I wouldn't put it quite on par with the masterpieces that followed, for reasons I'm now going to discuss.

Of course, this is a delightfully lo-fi affair that shows Necrodeath at their rawest, while still feeling much more like a fully formed band compared to the Ghostrider demo. Claudio's razor-sharp riffage and sinister arpeggios are already there in all their glory, and Ingo snarls and screeches from the depths of hell like the possessed maniac he is; you also get a glimpse of the band's characteristic "non-linear" songwriting style that would serve as the bulk for the overwhelmingly schizophrenic feeling that makes "Into the Macabre" such an intense listening experience. What these tunes lack when compared to following works is, of course, Peso's insanely fast, earth-shattering drumming, which was a direct influence from Kreator's "Pleasure to Kill" (and well, that album hadn't come out yet!) - even though his performance on "Morbid Mayhem" does already foreshadow the intensity he'd show on later records. Another slight flaw: a slightly less organized songwriting can be sensed when listening closely.

When speaking of Necrodeath's "non-linear" songwriting style, I was referring to their tendency (at least on their 80's records) to put riffs and sections together in stark contrast through very abrupt, uneven breaks and tempo shifts - which is one of the band's main strengths in making their songs feel more varied, multifaceted and violent in their delivery. Just listen to this version of "Iconoclast": while already featuring its unforgettable melodic intro and most of the same riffs that would appear on the 1999 re-recording, the structure is way more long-winded and filled with the most disparate tempo changes, not to mention the partially different lyrics and some visibly different riffs. However, in this particular case, this songwriting style feels also a bit awkward: after all, there's a reason why "Iconoclast" was shortened so much on the "Mater of All Evil" album. Not all these endless transitions and breaks had yet achieved the ruthless functionality they would possess on "Into the Macabre", and you can definitely tell. Songs tend to start with a sinister intro, bludgeon the listener to death during the first half, and then expand their main ideas with generally slower riffing through the second half, in a way that doesn't quite feel as organized and consistently "extreme" as it would on later works. Also, the riffing is still slightly acerbic: while already possessing lots of brilliant, unforgettable ideas showing Necrodeath as one of the most promising underground metal acts of the time, Claudio's sawing riffage tends to feel a bit samey during many of the faster parts (just listen to the fast verses of "(Necro) Thrashin' Death" and "Morbid Mayhem" back-to-back to understand what I mean). And I guess I'm not the only one to have noticed that, since even the band themselves did slightly improve upon the fast riffage of "Mater Tenebrarum" when re-recording it for "Into the Macabre", making the song a bit more distinct and personal.

Still, these are only minor complaints, which make sense mostly only in relation to the band's following works. "The Shining Pentagram" remains, in essence, a cult gem of mid-80's underground proto-extreme metal which had a huge impact on the tape-trading scene at the time: for 1985 (the year of "Seven Churches" and "Hell Awaits", mind you), this was some of the most extreme stuff out there together with Sepultura's "Bestial Devastation", Poison's "Bestial Death" and Death's "Back from the Dead", all of which followed a similar approach in many regards. If you want to have an idea of how fast, raw and evil underground metal could be around that time (back when death metal was just barely starting to thrive as a new musical language), this is one of the finest examples you can possibly find. Get yourself lost in this piece of morbid mayhem and don't look back.