At this late date Pentagram’s existence is far from a secret, with the nearly 15 years of struggle leading to the emergence of their debut album in 1985 firmly part of the band’s lore. However, these highly influential Northern VA/ DC-based Metallic titans did cut a couple of early singles; rare and surely pricy in original form, those sides were combined last decade with a load of long-unreleased material to comprise First Daze Here and the extended First Daze Here Too. In a fine development they’ve been reissued by Relapse; the LP/2LP/7-inch bundle is still available, and the vinyl can also be purchased separately or on CD/ digital. For anyone curious over the roots of Doom, they form a colossal primer.
The story of Pentagram basically relates the perseverance of vocalist and solitary constant member Bobby Liebling amid numerous setbacks both professional and personal, his eventual modest success being followed by drug-addled decline that found him living in his parent’s basement. It’s all covered in painstaking detail by Last Days Here, frankly one of the better examples in a veritable ocean of music documentaries in large part because it culminates with the positivity of Liebling getting sober and married as his creative juices begin flowing once again.
Many fans were introduced to Pentagram through ’93’s Relentless, which was actually a retitling of their eponymous self-released first album, though the Peaceville label additionally reverted to the recording and sequencing of the songs as they appeared on ‘82’s All Your Sins, a demo cut while under the moniker of Death Row. That’s a whole lot of revamping, and it indicates the level of difficulty the group experienced; formed in 1971, jump forward a decade and Pentagram had been through temporary name changes and considerable lineups with many more to follow.
Day of Reckoning came out in ’87, initially on Napalm Records to be later reissued by Peaceville; for a while it and Relentless formed the basis of the outfit’s underground status, extending the sonic ground broken in the early ’70s by Black Sabbath as Pentagram hung in the same corner of the metal scene as Witchfinder General, St. Vitus, Trouble, and their geographical peers The Obsessed.
Although it took a while to make the rounds, 1972-1979 first appeared in 1993 and was joined later in the decade by the bootleg 1972-1979 (Vol. 2) and the authorized but scarce (at least I’ve never knowingly been in the same room with a copy) Human Hurricane. New releases did continue to hit the racks, but for many the arrival of First Daze Here, originally sporting the parenthetical The Vintage Collection as it offered a dozen tracks from between ’72 and ’76, was the major development on the Pentagram front.
A step up in quality from the prior comps, the set solidifies the importance of a major building block in the gradual uprising of Doom and in the process situated Pentagram’s formative period as far less Sabbath-inflected than a casual observer might assume; opener “Forever My Queen” presents a tidy hunk of big riffs and psych-tinged soloing that’s more deeply shaped by the openly acknowledged precedent of Blue Cheer.
“Be Forewarned,” which served as the a-side to the ’72 single they cut under the name Macabre (this being the 7-inch offered in Relapse’s bundle; the CD version tucks them onto a bonus disc), is even more impacted by the heavy psych motions of just a few years’ prior, finding Liebling belting out lyrics with a definite late ’60s comportment. And there are a lot of echo-laden words, amongst them a reference to Lucifer that gets nicely darkened by the heaviness of the track. The flip “Lazy Lady” explores stoner blooze atmosphere to substantive effect.
The album proper has both songs in different versions from the same session, though the majority of the cuts derive from March of 1973; these include “Forever My Queen,” the decidedly more Sabbath-like “When the Screams Come” and the impressively multifaceted “Walk into the Blue Light.” Indeed, the entirety of First Daze Here transcends its modest local studio origins (though the production is at the very least competent throughout) via quality songwriting and stylistic breadth heightened by a well-controlled band dynamic; for evidence, check out the non-Doomy drive of the ’76 vintage “Starlady.”
Yes, a notable ratio of “lady” talk doth transpire, but it ultimately complements the overall thrust, which alternates between the mid-tempo stoner grooving of “Review Your Choices” and the post-Cheer riff-flailing of “Hurricane” and “20 Buck Spin” as the standout “Livin’ in a Ram’s Head,” with its snarling amps and sturdy rhythmic trucking, combines the best from both sides.
It and “Earth Flight” date from the National Sound Warehouse in ’74 and reveal Pentagram, or at least the incarnation on display here, at pretty much the top of their game. “Last Daze Here,” rescued from a rehearsal tape from the summer of the same year, reaches back to the loquaciousness of the Macabre 45 and delivers the LP its finale.
Normally, follow-up archival volumes suffer general drop-offs in quality, but that’s only moderately the case with First Daze Here Too, which is especially significant given that the album offers so much of it. Also interesting is the inclusion of two rather atypical covers, The Yardbirds’ “Little Games” and the Stones’ “Under My Thumb,” the former a rousing success and the latter an odds-defying triumph with a deliciously raw guitar tone.
Neither strolls down Doom alley, but that’s not a sign of faltering as Pentagram retained focus amid the variety. Disc one opener “Wheel of Fortune” is actually a strutting stomping crowd pleaser as nearly all of the first disc diverts from the expected Sab stabs, e.g. the similarly attitudinal “Teaser” and the faster-paced “Smokescreen.” Respectively delving into ’70s hard rock’s more commercial zone and forecasting comparable ’80s developments, the chunky momentum of “Much Too Young to Know” even brandishes a momentary burst of dual six-string solo action.
As doom-stoner-sludge had yet to evolve into a specific style, none of this is much of a surprise, though fans of Pentagram’s later albums and the numerous bands they influenced should find the contents of disc two more to their liking; it’s full of prime rhythmic thud, huge and ragged guitar figures, and Liebling’s modest but smartly employed vocal range.
It’s hard to deny a substantial aspect in the overall appeal does stem from the lack of studio polish, with this take of “Be Forewarned” maybe the best of its ’70s versions (the song would eventually provide the title track to Pentagram’s third album in 1994), though the rough fidelity is even more apparent during recordings made at the American Mailing Warehouse, specifically “Frustration” (which also surfaces on Be Forewarned), the spectacular seven and a half minutes of “Target” (complete with burning solos) and the expansive psychedelia of the ten minute closer “Shoe ‘em How.”
It was during this period that Pentagram was almost scooped up by Columbia Records; it’s fun to speculate over what might’ve been, but it’s also difficult to imagine the vibrant rawness harnessed on these two weighty retrospectives surviving the Tall Buildings treatment; First Daze Here and its follow-up don’t essay what could have been but instead cohere into a major achievement both of and ahead of its time.
First Daze Here
A-
First Daze Here Too
B+
