Rating: 5.9

Country: USA

Release Date: 2004

Track list:
1. Sargträger
2. Days Of Yore
3. Fuck Them All But Six
4. Entropy
5. Space Ape
6. Apocalyptic Visions
7. Beerdigung

Band Website: Black Mantia

Black Manta - Fuck Them All But Six

Hillel- Guitars
Joe Hasselvander- Drums
Walter White- Bass
Skull- Vocals

Oh dear. As much as it pains me to say it, this is certainly the strangest, and undoubtedly the most disappointing work Joe “The Beast” Hasselvander has participated in to date. Now, I know it's entirely unfair to evaluate a musician's work by continually framing it in context with the rest of his discography, but I can't help but wonder what happened with this one. This album isn't entirely BAD per se, it's just very derivative, by-the-numbers Maryland rock of the lighter variety (Earthride meets Clutch, I would say), accompanied by a pretty muddy, murky mix and a highly eccentric vocal performance.

From a more optimistic perspective, one could certainly say that Black Manta exhibit a sensitivity to the fact that the RIFF is the fundamental, focal catalyst of all great rock n'roll, and conjure a convincingly sweaty, sweltering intensity that suggests that they would be quite the spectacle in a live setting. Yet, somehow, for all their good intentions and manic energy, the music remains, after 10 solid spins, thoroughly uninteresting and formulaic, traversing a path that has already been well-trodden by more inspired forbears. While some might suggest that Skull's highly idiosyncratic vocal delivery, like Neil Fallon if he tried to ape Glenn Danzig through Bobby Liebling's twang-y delivery, his guttural bellow does serve to irritate more often than not. The mix, on one hand, lends the band a distinctive personality that it otherwise seems to lack, but on the other it cloaks everything in an impenetrable blanket of coagulated filth, the band employing a High On Fire/Lair Of The Minotaur-esque density to the sound that is suitably barreling and nihilistic, but somewhat at odds with the groove-centric approach of the band. It doesn't help that two songs on this record are really, really bad: the title track and “Apocalyptic Visions”, both marred by the repetitious and tired predictability of the songwriting.

I was somewhat more enthusiastic about hearing this recording after hearing the band on Crucial Blast's 'Doom Capital' compilation, but I can't help but feel underwhelmed at how forgettable and redundant this material is. Again, nothing in this recording, save for the title track and “Apocalyptic Visions” is particularly offensive, it's just so uniformly pedestrian that I hesitate to offer anything more than the requisite “ho-hum”.

January 6th, 2006