Year: 2020
Total Time: 24:32
Label: Self-Financed
MANTAR is a duet from Bremen (Werder hardly stayed at Bundesliga this year) and they like to perform a mix of Doom/Sludge Metal. But what happens when they try to make an introspection back to their teenage youths? It’s very simple, they are releasing an album full of covers. One could say that they were expected to cover mostly Metal bands but Erinc (drums, vocals) and Hanno (guitars-vocals) decided to cover grunge and alternative bands -when the term “alternative” meant exactly that, something alternative and not something manufactured by the record labels.
The first song is “The Bomb” by L7 which was modified into a punk/Metal song with an aesthetic of neo-Black vocals to be followed by SONIC YOUTH’s “100%” which, although its first form was already heavy and bare of unnecessary elements, here appears to be heavier and deadlier. I should mention that it reminded me of DEAFHEAVEN as far as it concerns the urban approach. To my ears their view on MAZYSTAR’s “Ghost Highway” sounds at least very interesting since they replaced the psychedelic feeling of Hope Sandoval’s eerie voice with an intimidating rhythm. The best cover, in my humble opinion, is the L7’s (again) and their anthem “Can I Run”, an intense, dark song with lyrics about female harassment and abuse through the ages, a song with a hard meaning. In BABES IN TOYLAND “Bruise Violet” they reduced the speed, toned down the tune and brought it into MANTAR’s fields with a Sludge/Doom hue, while in the same time they did the opposite in MUDHONEY’s “Who You Driving Now”. An already fast song by one of the most iconic bands of Seattle sound, became even faster with MANTAR’s signature. The closing track “Knot” is from an unknown to me band, 7 YEAR BITCH. I listened to the original song and found MANTAR’s version at least peculiar under a Punk/Black filter.
MANTAR seemed to have fun recording this album. Beware, this is not a happy nor a joyful record despite the fact that the original tracks emit a light essence stepping out of the dark core. The cover of the album is also leading us to that direction, with a masked, lonely guy, holding a gun, standing in front of a snowy, hazy block of flats. These dark songs were transformed by MANTAR into a declaration of homage to their youth, two teenagers who spent their years in a dull region in a post-Cold War era in reunited Germany.
Rating: 7/10
Editor: Dimos Karadimos
Related Link: MANTAR – Official Page
