Boxset Review: Lock Up - Brethren Of The Pentagram
Reviewed by Dan Barnes
The April release of At the Gates’ The Ghost of a Future Dead album was a stark reminder that, while the wider world had been mourning the loss of Ozzy Osbourne in July 2025, the untimely passing Tomas Lindberg, on 16th September 2025, was an equally comparable loss to the extreme metal community.
Best known for his work fronting ATG, Tomas was nothing if not a versatile performer, who could be found in as diverse projects as the Hardcore-adjacent The Great Deceiver, death thrashers The Crown, and crust punks Disfear and Skitsystem to name but a few.
However, it was his tenure fronting the grindcore supergroup, Lock Up, that filled his time most notably during ATG’s hiatus at the end of the nineties and into the noughties.
Formed in 1998 by Napalm Death’s Shane Embury and the late Jesse Pintado, along with ex- Cradle of Filth and Dimmu Borgir (among many others) drummer Nick Barker, as an attempt to recapture the raw, punk-infused grind that Napalm themselves champion on Scum and From Enslavement to Obliteration, but seemed to lose grip of during the nineties more-death metal sounding albums. The Godfathers of Grind suddenly found themselves being overtaken by the likes of Nasum, Brutal Truth and Rotten Sound, and it was time Grind came home.
With that being said, disc one of this retrospective collection, the band’s 1999 debut, Pleasure Pave Sewers, does not feature the voice of Tomas, rather it is noted producer and Hypocrisy/ Pain frontman, Peter Tägtgren who handles the screams.
While not as punk-infused grind as Jesse’s work on Terrorizer’s World Downfall, PPS’s death grind attack makes the genre feel dangerous again. Opener After Life in Purgatory begins with a scream and twisting guitar as Peter’s vocals bark and snarl and Nick’s drums blast; Submission continues the chaos and Triple Six Suck Angels introduces some groove into the sound. Delirium blasts and growls and we’re even given a wee breakdown for our troubles.
The two-part Slow Bleed Gorgon / Pleasures Pave Sewers begins at a moderate pace, reminiscent of Eighties mid-tempo death metal, launching into a whirlwind grind at the halfway point. Ego Pawn, The Dreams are Sacrificed and Tragic Faith are all unruly and out to destroy, whereas Darkness of Ignorance opts for a more textured approach through an exercise in restraint. Shane shines in the intro section to Salvation Thru’ Destruction; Leech Eclipse is a sub-one-minute rampage and closer, with the previously unreleased, Fever Landscapes, bringing the curtain down on the debut after a mere twenty-nine minutes and some-odd seconds.
When you think back to the state of the metal scene at the time of Pleasure Pave Sewers’ release, you appreciate how welcome this half-hour of uncompromising grind was at the time, and it’s been a real pleasure to revisit it after all these years, and it not having aged a day.
Perhaps it was the influence of Lock Up’s debut, but Napalm Death’s subsequent millennial album, Enemy of the Music Business, which was their first post-Earache release and the last of the band’s albums to feature Jesse’s playing, saw Napalm unleashing musical fury again and began a streak of ground-breaking records that continue to this day.
Peter didn’t return for the sophomore album, and his place was taken by Tomas for more grind-oriented Hate Breed Suffering in 2002. Disc two of this collection is the whirlwind assault that sees Lock Up in a particularly abrasive mood. Opening tracks Feeding on the Opium, Castrate the Wreckage and Violent Reprisal arrive with snapping, snarling vocals, sawing guitars and Nicks’ inhuman drums.
Jesse’s buzzsaw tone permeates the album, from the relentless aggression of the tile track, through High Tide in a Sea of Blood to solid grinders like The Jesus Virus, Broken World and The Sixth Extinction.
Peter’s departure does not rob Lock Up of those Deathy riffs, which can be heard on Dead Sea Scroll Deception, Horns of Venus and among the infectious progression of Catharsis; the two-part tune Fake Somebody / Real Nobody is reminiscent of the debut’s Slow Bleed Gorgon / Pleasures Pave Sewers, as it begins slow and deliberate before exploding into rampaging fury and concluding in some Deathy licks.
Hate Breeds Suffering isn’t all about the fiery anger; there are also moments which get your foot tappin’, as on Detestation, maybe even a little groove on Slaughtered Ways and a hooky riff in Cascade Leviathan, all ensure the record never becomes predictable.
As this is a Cherry Red product, we get three bonus tracks, including the loose bass of Satan’s Generation and live versions of The Dreams are Sacrificed and the previously unheard Storm of Stress.
It would be nine-years before Lock Up would produce album number three, 2011’s Necropolis Transparent, which found another unfortunate personnel change after the untimely death of Jesse Pintado in 2006. Replacing him arrived Anton Reisengger, of Pentagram (Chile), thrashers Criminal and the short-lived eighties project, Fallout.
Neither the years nor the change of personnel blunted Lock Up’s cutting edge and that is proved without a shadow of a doubt by Necropolis’ commencing trio of Brethren of The Pentagram, Accelerated Mutation and The Embodiment of Paradox and Chaos, all of which launch the album in the fiery, most fierce way possible, with unrelenting grind. Unseen Enemy, and the latter-album tunes Infiltrate and Destroy, Discharge the Fear, Vomiting Evil and Stigmartyr ensure there’s no reduction in the ferocious energy of the record as it nears its conclusion.
Blending styles to a greater extent than the previous two records, Necropolis Transparent experiment with variation on the likes of Through the Eyes of My Shadow Self, which reveals in an introspective musing, the slow, almost doom-death pacing of Tartarus, and the dark atmosphere of Stygian Reverberations. You’ll even find danceable grooves on Parasite Drama and Rage Incarnate Reborn to lighten the mood a tad.
Not wanting to fully forget their death-grind past, the band give you the crunch title track, and Anvil of Flesh, both of which owe something to the early Morbid Angel sound; Roar of a Thousand Throats even brings in a breakdown to maintain the interest factor.
Bonus tracks on disc three are new versions of After Life in Purgatory and Feeding on The Opiate recorded during the Necropolis sessions, a demo version of The Embodiment of Paradox and Chaos and the unreleased charging grind of Thus the Beast Decapitated and Infinite In Its Nothingness.
The fourth and final disc of this collection is Lock Up’s 2005 live album, Play Fast or Die: Live in Japan. As a band, Lock Up were not the most prolific live act, with their most recent visit to UK shores being with Napalm Death, Brujeria and Power Trip in 2017. Those of us who witnessed the band’s British debut at the under-rated Damnation 2009 festival were assured that Lock Up were one of the rare example of a ‘super-group’ equal to the sum of its parts.
Picking from the first two records, disc four is a pummelling twenty song blast of grinding energy, capturing the show from Nagoya’s Club Quattro in June 2002. It is largely the first-time of hearing Tomos singing Peter’s songs, giving the death-grind of After Life in Purgatory, Submission and Tragic Faith a more punk aspect. It’s three-quarters of an hour of utter brutality.
Brethren of the Pentagram is an essential collection of one of grind’s most important actors coming together at the peak of their talents. Lock Up would go on to release two further records, Demonization in 2017 and The Dregs of Hades in 2021, with the drum stool being taken over by Misery Index’s Adam Jarvis and Brutal Truth’s Kevin Sharp sharing vocals with Tomos, for the continuation of the band’s impressive legacy.
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