Welcome to the jungle: Riot Games’ house metal band are releasing an album

Pentakill - the best-known, possibly only metal band in Valoran.

It’s maybe easiest to think of Pentakill as Gorillaz – the self-destructive cartoons given a voice by Blur man Damon Albarn. 

On stage in Valoran, Pentakill are League of Legends champs Karthus, Mordekaiser, Olaf, Sona and Yorick. 

We don’t know who Pentakill are in the studio (we’ve been told to “stay tuned”). But they’ve done an album.

Internet discussion about Pentakill extends back to at least 2012 – at which time the most pressing question was ‘Who is the drummer??’ (Olaf. The drummer turned out to be Olaf). Riot implemented alternate musician skins for five of their champions, and then – silence. The most offensive sound in heavy metal.

“You have seen the true voice of metal fall quiet, surrounded by the massed harmonies of your weak whispers,” wrote Riot today, in a post titled ‘Pentakill Rises’.

“But listen closely to those whispers, and you shall find the seed of truth. Four voices. Five harbingers of destruction, waiting patiently for their time to rise. And on that chosen day, these five shall change your world forever.”

There’s more along those lines – “sonic brutality”, “plebian souls”, etc. But you’re here for the music, yeah?

The new album is named Smite and Ignite, and practically every song off it is named after a LoL item of one kind or another. You can listen to bits of it on the HMV site before its release on June 3.

Pentakill remind me most of progressive thrash outfit Symphony X. But with choruses! And yeeeeeahs. How about you?