MANTAR RETURNS WITH “ODE TO THE FLAME”

Those who set their clocks by the appearance of our first morning posts are going to be late all day today, because we’re getting a late start on this Thursday. In fact, I’m still not finished with what I had planned for our first post. But to tide us over until I’m finished, I have something else of great interest to share:

The German band Mantar have completed a new album named Ode To the Flame that will be released by their new label Nuclear Blast on April 15. As you can see, they decided to go in a very simple direction with the cover art, especially by comparison with the eye-catching and indelibly memorable cover art for their debut album Death By Burning. They do have an explanation for that:

“We kinda liked the idea of boycotting the need of any so called ‘art’ which bands try to get people’s attention with. The theme of the record is so one-dimensional and obvious that we decided to skip artwork and just put the title on the record to make it look more like an old book. A manifest, a challenge. We don’t want people to speculate about any meaning. The meaning is clear: kill, destroy, fuck shit up.”

Fair enough.

I liked the hell out of Death By Burning, and I was completely blown away by this duo’s live performance at last year’s Maryland Deathfest — one of the top performances of the fest in my opinion. I have high expectations for Ode To the Flame; you should, too.

One more thing: Today Nuclear Blast released two videos in connection with this album. The first is an in-studio video. The second is a teaser for a track called “Era Borealis”. Between the two, you get a few minutes of music from the album — which sound black, bruising, and back-breaking. Bring it on….

http://www.mantarband.com
http://www.facebook.com/mantarband
http://www.nuclearblast.de/mantar