Pentagram - Review Your Choices (CD)

All Music Guide

Obviously disturbed by the unauthorized release Human Hurricane, which presented much of his band's long-lost, early-'70s material in positively sub-sonic bootleg condition, Pentagram main man Bobby Liebling called upon longtime collaborator (and sometime Raven drummer) Joey Hasselvander to aid him in setting the record straight. The result was 1999's aptly named Review Your Choices, containing newly recorded versions of many of the aforementioned lost classics by Liebling, and the multi-talented Hasselvander performing all instruments. Purists may therefore balk at these late-'90s renditions, but there's no denying their overall quality, nor the musicians' reasoning for doing them. Having said all that, it is nice to hear the unbelievably fierce "Burning Rays" finally given a proper studio version after nearly two decades in bootleg obscurity. Further resurrections of ancient favorites like the title track, "Downhill Slope," and "Forever My Queen" are no less potent for their updated ...guise. On a trivia note, old favorite "Living in a Ram's Head" is not the strange satanic reference some might imagine, but rather a light-hearted allusion to the D.C.-area venue which was one of the band's regular haunts back in the '70s. As for the newly minted material, "Megalania," with it's Sabbath-inspired dirge, and "Change of Heart," with its crushing afterthought of a riff, are probably the lone standouts. - Ed Rivadavia, All Music Guide Read more Less