Customer Reviews

First Daze Here Too: Vintage Collection

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Awesome release of early Pentagram material. Not as good as "First Daze Here", but helluva lot better than any output from most heavy rock bands today. Fans of Leaf Hound, Stooges, early Blue Cheer and of course Black Sabbath should check this out. Also you should check out Witchcraft for that early 1970's sound.

I'll be honest, I don't know what doom is but this doesn't sound like it to me. This is some of the best Rock n Roll I've ever heard. It sounds like Love, the Stooges, and Black Sabbath all rolled into one. I cannot think of anything cooler than that.

What if this fine band from Virginia would have recorded a bunch of albums at the appropriate time, just when they should have? What if they had recorded, mixed and produced in a decent but still heavy way these heavily riffed gems for the release of a couple complete albums? Would they then be as big as Sabbath or so?
Demos, rehearsals and some other raw stuff make this a lot different than the Pentagram we have known. This is much closer to the psychedelic hard rock sound of 70s bands like Jerusalem, T2, Sir Lord Baltimore or even Hendrix and Zeppelin. It includes a cover of the Stones' "Under My Thumb" for Christ's sake! It's an essential purchase not only for heavy metal or doom fans but also for all those who keep looking for that marvelous underground 70s hard rockin gems like the ones i refered to before. This is our chance to listen to that much influental band being influented by others.
Once again Relapse Records did an excellent work with the packaging. 28-page booklet, lyrics, photos, what else would you expect?
So, to answer that previous stupid question of mine, maybe Pentagram would never become as huge as Black Sabbath but they surely deserve a lot more than they ever got. Too vintage, too pure to be famous.

THIS BATCH OF EARLY SEVENTIES HARD ROCK, IS AS I SAID WAS NOT AS CONSISTENT AS VOLUME ONE, BUT BEATS MOST OF WHAT'S PUT THESE DAYS.

As a long-time, big-time Pentagram fan, I've been eagerly awaiting this release for awhile, so here's my take on this compilation of 70's recordings by this killer band.
First off, the packaging is great, with very informative liner notes addressing everything from recording locations to the Kiss and Judas Priest myths associated with this band. Good stuff! Moving onto the discs, the first thing you'll notice is that this is more like a 1.5 cd set, as Disc 1 has only 7 tracks on it. Nevertheless, Disc 1 is the reason to get this release. Tracks 1 & 2 are from one of the band's demos/rehearsals recorded in 1974, while the remaining tracks are from their Underground Sound session in 1976 (when Iverson was in the band). To my knowledge, 5 of these 7 songs are not on any previous legit release, and they're some of the band's strongest, tightest tunes. The sound quality is also quite good, considering the age of the recordings. The one misfire is the cover of `Little Games', which is by far the worse thing in the Pentagram catalog, but the other 6 songs are essential for any fan of the Ram. As for Disc 2, all 15 songs come from rehearsal tapes recorded between 1972 and 1974. Most of these tracks have also never been on a legit release, and a few aren't even on the bootlegs or demo tapes that I know of. In my opinion, the songs on Disc 2 are not the band's best material- they're not bad, but not as strong as the tracks on Disc 1 and those included on the first First Daze Here collection. Thus, I'm giving it only 4 of 5 stars. Still, any true fan will want this collection The liner notes make reference to more tracks still sitting on tapes awaiting release, so a volume 3 might eventually come to pass

Pentagram deserves every accolade that they recieve. I would just like to point out that the SECOND DISC is where the real pentagram is! The first disc is a few good songs and a few covers but it ultimately sounds like they were trying to catch the ears of the big label heads with some "nice" sounding material. I never even listen to it! The other disc is where the gold is. What we have here on disc two is a barrage of the "raw,rough,and ready" pentagram that we all know and love. I've always been suspect of people who say that they love music and then proceed to whine about production values. People should be AMAZED that these recordings even exist anymore! There are a TON of old recordings that could very well make up a possible "first daze three, four and/or five". Let's hope geof, bobby, and metal blade can make that happen.

The tragically unheard of Pentagram does so much here,it's ridiculous. Vincent McAllister and Greg Mayne are 2 of rock's truly undiscovered guitarists and bassists respectively.

Just try the album opener, "Wheel of Fortune" with a Stooges-inspired straightforwardness combined with a touch of Sabbath heaviness. "Smokescreen", clearly an attempt at emulating Deep Purple in their frenetic 70s hayday, and the somewhat poppish "Teaser"(reminiscent of certain heavy Sweet tracks). And that's just the first disk!

Among Disc 2s standouts that further showcase the band's versatility are "Virgin Death"(some nice country style licks)"Be Forewarned"(overtly in the Sabbath style, but with a groovy bass line in the middle that would certainly give Geezer Butler pause)"Frustration" and "Die in Your Sleep" two short songs that pack in a surprising amount of solos , and the album's two standouts "Target", with the middle being capped out by a wild solo and contrasting bass line that the liner notes claim was ever longer live and "Show 'Em How" a song with more extended soloing and more surprising mood changes and instrumental prowess than 100 newer bands. There might be some weaker tracks on here "Cartwheel" "Catwalk." etc but they aren nowhere near so horrible as to seriously detract from the overall quality of the disc.



Buy, this, buy this! Please, for the love of god and with the hopes that they'll release more material from the vault(this Pentagram lineup recorded roughly 80 tracks) buy it!