PENTAGRAM (CHILE), Demo #2 (1987, demo)

The skull:
A grisly subject, this skull is cracked and bloodied no doubt from being run through a photocopier a couple dozen times, the hard way. He’s managed to keep his shit together, but only barely, and you can see in his gritted smile that he can’t put up with too much more of this. A skull has his limits!

The music:
Pentagram are minor legends based on, really, just a couple of demos from the mid 80s. They played thrash bordering on death metal that you could place somewhere between Kreator and Possessed, and while they never do anything especially original, they were certainly among the first bands in Chile to be playing this sort of thing, and it can’t be denied that they do it well. On this second demo, they even somehow approximate the fabled Sunlight Studios guitar tone a year before Nihilist’s first demo, and I wouldn’t be surprised if those Swedish lads took direct inspiration from their South American contemporaries. You can’t come to Pentagram looking for sophistication or technicality, but if you have a fondness for this sort of raw proto-death metal, then you should certainly check them out. Both demos from 1987 were released on CD a few years ago, although I believe that compilation is itself out of print and hard to come by, but the band is back together with a new album, and I imagine it’s just a matter of time before their classic material is available again.
— Friar Johnsen