Mantic Execution

Look, I've been listening a lot of thrash this year. The majority of my daily playlists are spent in the late 80's, and I've had stuff like Forbidden, Atrophy, and Flotsam & Jetsam on repeat. Picking up the new Mantic Ritual 7 inch recently reminded me that I needed to throw some of those thrash revival bands into the mix as well. That 7 inch also proved to be the push that I needed to finally pick up one of my favorite records from that late 2000 era.

Of course when Mantic Ritual originally released their Executioner album in 2009, I was still buying a lot of CDs, so it feels good to finally right those past wrongs. Man, some of those records from the thrash revival era didn't hold up enough to have me returning to them on the regular, but this Mantic Ritual album still has me thrashing like a maniac. Revisiting this era and grabbing this album has me wanting to grab some vinyl from other thrashers from that time like Bonded By Blood, Evile and Gama Bomb.

When the options are splatter or metallic silver for colored vinyl, I'll skip playing that game and just hit the black vinyl. Overseas shipping cost almost as the price tag on this record, but it doesn't matter when you want it bad enough.

Mantic Ritual Returns

I was big into the thrash revival that started kicking up some dust in the late 2000's. I'd been heavily getting back into metal after stepping away from it through the 90's, and when I discovered that old school bands like Overkill, Testament and Death Angel could still release some absolutely blistering thrash this late in the game I was impressed as hell. When I also found that a bunch of newer bands were paying respect to that 80's thrash sound, I embraced it. Sure it could get a bit goofy at times with some comic book lyrics, I didn't care. Bands like Bonded By Blood, Gama Bomb and Evile were a blast and I dug the hell out of them. Those bands don't see a lot of action in my playlists these days but when I saw that Mantic Ritual were back at it and releasing their first material in 12 years, I couldn't resist checking it out.

Mantic Ritual released one album back in the thrash revival era, Executioner from 2009. If you want to see where I rated that album for that year, and also take a peak at how far my year end wrap ups have come over time, you can check that shit HERE. That album was obviously one of my favorites from those days, so I was excited to pick up their two song 7 inch, Crusader. One new song, and a cover of Black Funeral. Mercyful Fate isn't an easy band to cover, but Mantic Ritual do the song justice here, and that new song is really good as well.

Just like their Executioner album, the cover for this thing makes it look like it is a death metal record, but make no mistake, this is straight up thrash. I hope that we hear more from the band because this is great teaser.