Pentark – Ha Ha Ha!

Sounding at times like improvisational post-rock, the Brussels-based Pentark has recently released its second recording. Ha Ha Ha! shows off the band’s expanding compositions as it also now incorporates occasional vocals. At its heart, though, it’s still an unruly matter of guitar squalls and odd surprises.

The album has its share of longish jams, which allow Pentark to follow its muse all over creation. Over the course of the 6-minute-plus cuts, Pentark might deploy the usual loud-quiet-loud formula that helped launch the careers of so many others. “Lowering Sky” closes the album with an Explosions in the Sky epic, and “Geological” opens with a similar (but more patient) direction. “Geological” perhaps takes its name literally, as in “geologic time,” as its initial glacial pace and spareness give onto later skyward rumblings: big guitars and emphatic, pounding drums. What starts out as Codeine ends up as June of 44.

There’s one cut midway through that takes the whole thing sideways and it’s called “Strawberry Picking.” This one piles on the detuned guitars, mixes in a start/stop Shellac beat, and has some howling vocals. It changes its own course during the bridge before coming back to the looping bass and earlier guitar/drum patterns. It’s the Chicago school of noise reaching out to Belgium (disc mastering was done by Bob Weston, after all). “The Silence of Mystery” takes a similar course.

“Cul Mine” might be the closest thing to Krautrock on Ha Ha Ha! but by the end it’s equal parts no-wave, Mono, and Neu, all set to a punkish tempo. More common, though, are the cuts that go for the long, slow build — as on “Mon 863″ and “Parbleu.” This CD might not create any new converts for the scene, as it’s rougher and at times more aggressive and less accessible than, say, Mogwai, but it’s a decent effort nonetheless.