Pentarium
Zwischenwelt

So, I found this album by a band called Pentarium, or just accidentally happened to start playing it. Zwischenwelt is the name of the album, German, and it is their second album. Their first album was released in 2016 but the band was formed all the way back in 2006 so they certainly took their time to create their first album, the second album didn’t take as long and we have reviewed it. And after playing it for quite a while I was surprised to read that the first was well received by the press, I have not checked that out but I did note that this album didn’t receive any raving reviews as far as I could find, one gave it the lowest rating. So if the first album was well received it has to be a lot better than this album, because it isn’t very impressive.

Melodic death metal is the style of the band, somewhere in the middle in terms of style – paint by numbers is a way to describe it. They do it according to the format and don’t really surprise anywhere; growly vocals, melodic riffing and what have you. Decent sound and all that as well but it feels like the band lacks ambition here, it is like they don’t really have any direction and the album seems a bit cautious in terms of style, like a band who fear alienating fans and therefore makes a very inoffensive album. Variation? Not sure, I loose attention pretty fast and the fifty or so minutes of playing time feels way too long and I would argue that it is probably more interesting to watch sand pass through an hourglass than listening to this album – it might actually even be that the sound the sand makes is more appealing than what you hear on this album.

Sure it is not vomitworthy or played in such a way that it permanently damages your ears but it is insanely boring. The fact is that there isn’t really anything on this album that feels enjoyable to me, it is just a dull bland exercise in unoriginality from a band too scared to do something of their own so in their fear of making something not everyone will like they manage to make something that probably no one will like. It might be a bit mean to write something like that, but I am not the only one who writes something like that about this album. Shame for Pentarium as they seem to be able to do much more than they show, they can probably make good music if they had the songs to do it – but it is all about writing those great songs and they don’t do it this time.

In the press sheet they claim that the band shows they world as it truly is, if that is the case then we live in a terribly boring world. I am not so sure the world is as boring as this album. I would end by claiming that you can pass up on this album without missing anything, it isn’t a very good one.

HHHHHHH