"Executioner" CD by Mantic Ritual

by Jürgen Tschamler (29.01.2009) This retro Thrash trend doesn’t stop. Curiously enough, more and more old school Thrash combos pop up from somewhere and blast your ears away! US Thrashers Mantic Ritual, too, are a synonym for crisp’n tight old school Thrash. The band’s original name was Meltdown - they even had released a CD on their own which is hard to get these days... But they had to change their name, and so they recorded that complete album once again (this time in the Stage One Studio owned by production guru Andy Classen) and also added two tracks: "Blackout" (a Scorpions cover version) and "By the cemetery". Ok, they can’t and won’t reinvent the wheel, so they pick up the assets from genre greats such as Exodus, Slayer, Forbidden, Gammacide, or Rigor Mortis. You’ll also notice one or the other Metallica riff. Check out "Black tar sin" or "Death and destruction" (which reminds me of "Whiplash"). The gifted quartet whips up an uncompromising, excessive old school Thrash attack, combining versatility and cockiness - just listen to "Murdered to death", "Thrashatonement", "Double the blood", or "Panic".