Pentacle - Vic Records reissue of "Archaic Undead" Fury EP

Pentacle (Holland) is a death metal band that began in 1989. They have an interesting discography, the vast majority of which I have on CDs and tapes. In terms of death metal, this is a sound that I like a lot. Fans of classic death metal might like to know that Vic Records in 2024 reissued the EP called Archaic Undead Fury from 2005. Below is the Vic Records link in case you would like learn more this reissue.

By the way, the band is still active today and continues to make classic-style death metal. They are not a band that was active only in the 1980s or 1990s. To show you more about the band's motivation for their music, below is an excerpt from an old interview from 2015. I am not sure about the name of the person that interviewed them for a publication that seemed to be called Metal Warfare. It's not an interview that I did with them (although I have published a Metal Bulletin Zine interview that I did with them in the early days of this zine). However, I do like this excerpt because it explains their thinking and it may interest some readers that are supporters of death metal.

"When both Mike and I (Wannes Gubbels)formed the band in 1989 it was obvious we would appeal only to a selected audience. One of the reasons why Pentacle was formed/developed was to ‘counter’ the second wave of Death Metal in the sense we wanted to pay homage to the originators of the scene: Venom, Hellhammer/Celtic Frost, Possessed, Messiah, Slaughter (CAN), Necrophagia, Deathstrike/Master, Necrovore, Mantas/Death, Bathory, Poison (GER), Repulsion, Samhain/DesExult, Mefisto, Mutilated etc. We loved releases like ‘Consuming Impulse’, ‘Left Hand Path’, ‘Slowly We Rot’, ‘Severed Survival’, ‘Lost Paradise’, ‘Realm of Chaos’, ‘Soulside Journey’, ‘Altars of Madness’, ‘Dawn of Possession’ etc and still do, but we didn’t like the attitude of a big part of the scene which mocked the old bands, because they weren’t extreme enough (anymore) and only enjoyed the new ones. It felt like treachery to me and we weren’t interested to copy these new bands, so we decided to carry the spirit of the old guard with us. So, when the scene develops one way and you decide to go the other way... Well, it does has its consequences, yet I never felt any animosity because of our direction. People respected our sound because it was genuine from the heart and we weren’t trying to sound like the new Morbid Angel or Death, you know. They knew/felt Pentacle was an honest band and if they enjoyed it, that’s another case, but they couldn’t accuse us of follow the trend, right? Straight from the beginning we started playing cover tunes from bands like Hellhammer, Celtic Frost and Slaughter, so people knew what to expect from us. Our image made it clear we held the torch of the old bands high, so no shorts or sneakers on stage. Though the second wave of Black Metal was coming up as well, few Death Metal bands followed the path we did, so yes, we were an exception. But the choice was a very deliberate one and I still feel proud of it! Yes, our audience was different from the usual Death Metal crowd. I think we were still aggressive and intense to keep our ground related to more ‘common’ Death Metal bands, but when you start playing songs like ‘Messiah’ or ‘Tales of the Macabre’...not everyone will enjoy such primitive tracks. They are truly a blast from the past, eh? When I think of it, people who enjoyed Pentacle were often those who enjoyed the old bands as well. It was not the regular Morbid Angel crowd, but often old timers who thought it was great to see and hear a band somehow connected to their old faves and heroes or younger fans who developed a taste for the old ones as well."