This is something as rare (well to me anyway) as a Turkish metal band, but not only a Turkish metal band, a great Turkish metal band!
Pentagram is from Istanbul, but it's actually only in Turkey they are allowed to call themselves
Pentagram, after this release they got a court order and had to change their name so their latest international release Unspoken is released under the name Mezarkabul.
But lets concentrate on this release, that not only gives music played by a great Turkish band, but out of the thirteen tunes three of them are sung in Turkish, and they are among my favorites off this album, but more about that later.
Pentagram is five person band, consisting of:
Hakan: Guitar and vocals
Cenk: Drums and vocals
Tarkan: Bass and vocals
Demir: Guitar and vocals
Murat: Lead vocals
Even though the guitars of Hakan and Demir are very up front no one stands out more than others, what really stand out are the great arrangements and the atmosphere of the album.
Pentagram successfully created their own style of metal with a mix of straight metal and their Turkish heritage. If you had to put your finger on something it would probably be the vocal by Murat, but that is not really fair because the only thing you really can put down is his English. Well it's not the best in the world, but that is such a minor thing when you listen to the album, his singing and melody lines are great and he makes up the ground he lost with his English when he sings in Turkish, and that is when the album really shines. Personally I would wish that the whole album would have been done in Turkish (actually they released an album called BiR some years ago in Turkish, but that was a Turkish release only).
When listening to the album there are a few tunes that bloom more than others. A tune like
Anatolia (which is on the album in two versions, an English and a Turkish. The only thing I don't understand, well apart from the Turkish, is that the English version is 2 sec's longer...) with it's amazing theme.
Gündüz Gece, an old Turkish folksong which has been metalized but still kept true to it's original theme sounds awsome! I also own the live album from the Anatolia tour, and when this tune is played the crowd really kicks in and almost overpowers the band, pure gold!.
Give Me Something to Kill the Pain just has single written all over it, groovy, melodic and rocking with a great sing along chorus.
On the Run is the hardest tune with sort of a
Slayer feel to it.
Time is an instrumental track that lets you sit back while you close your eyes and let yourself drift off to distant times and dreams, and last,
Behind the Veil is yet another single possibility.
So what is it that makes this such a great album? Well it's the super duper tunes (duh!!), and the way they mix metal and
Pentagram's Turkish heritage.
This is just good music all the way, pure enjoyment with a Turkish twist.
Written by
Morten Thursday, August 25, 2005
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