Mantar – Post Apocalyptic Depression (Review)

Sometimes it just has to be rough to be fun.

With Post Apocalyptic Depression Mantar releases their fifth studio album since 2014. In various interviews, it has been announced that everything will be different this time; at least they want to show more courage.

Everything that was even slightly deemed unnecessary during the songwriting process has been discarded. Moving away from the polished predecessor Pain Is Forever And This Is The End, they return to a faster, dirtier, back-to-the-roots approach. They didn’t even use their own instruments but rather whatever was readily available in the studio. It can’t get more in-your-face than this, right?

The first song “Absolute Ghost” loses no time; a brief check-check, a quick spit on the ground, and the pounding begins. The 2.5 minutes set the tone for the upcoming songs; that’s all the song is meant to do, and it does so excellently.

The album is absolutely coherent in style, but never boring or repetitive; there are subtle changes and ideas everywhere. Up until the first single “Halsgericht,” you can notice a sequence of four shorter songs that are quite similar but have different nuances—sometimes the riffs stand out more, sometimes the drums, or in the next one, the vocals. “Halsgericht” itself sounds much more like a classic song, relatively long by comparison, with traditional song structures featuring a chorus and verses, but in Mantar’s guise, a blend of German and English.

Then it’s back to the shorter, dirtier songs. However, it’s clear that they haven’t discarded everything; influences from recent years remain, as I was reminded of songs from the cover album Grungetown Hooligans II during “Two Choices of Eternitty“. The album concludes with “Cosmic Abortion,” and I can’t imagine a better song to close a Mantar album, as beautifully expressed in the song: “Kill. Destroy. Fuck Shit Up.”

For me, Post Apocalyptic Depression is a sheer delight. As someone who generally resides more in the realms of post-rock/metal and the like, Mantar has always offered me a little escape from over-orchestrated song structures, allowing the little musical rage kid that resides in all of us to come out. I absolutely understand the self-criticism of the predecessor; the changes are logical, and the promise has been kept. You might even say that they have returned to a more precise core, but coupled with the experience of the last ten years. Their courage has paid off, and this album will undoubtedly plow through my ears several times this year.