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Mantak > Polymorphous Perversion > Reviews
Mantak - Polymorphous Perversion

Album is meh, but the bonus tracks, holy shit! - 75%

Noktorn, March 7th, 2010

This is the odd case of an album where the bonus tracks are actually better than the main bulk of the material; the main body of 'Polymorphous Perversion' isn't bad, but holy shit, the bonus tracks on the CD re-release by Old Cemetery, taken from the band's 2000 'Dark Borneo Art' EP, are fucking incredible. Fans of oldschool black/thrash will of course want to grab this, but it's the bonus tracks which make this nearly a must-have for just about anyone who likes extreme metal.

Okay, so the album itself 'Polymorphous Perversion' is pretty tight in and of itself; on this, the band plays pretty straightforward, rocking black/thrash that I think is derived largely from bands like Sabbat and Abigail. There's certainly a lot of '80s influence mixed with early '90s Norwegian black metal, and any sort of modern take on either style has been thoroughly abandoned. The tracks are brutal and to the point: lots of punk beats mixed with blasting, thrashy riffs, and yowling, screeching vocals. It's about par for the course for the sort of thing you hear in the southeast Asian black metal scene; keyboards don't really make an appearance.

I kind of take issue with the production; yeah, I get the whole Old Cemetery principle of 'loud, raw, and forward', but shit, it just comes off sounding kind of amateurish and clippy. The primary issue with 'Polymorphous Perversion', though, beyond sound quibbles, is that it's not very memorable. I understand that the album is essentially a tribute to the old styles of black and thrash metal, but Mantak doesn't really cultivate their own sound here and as a result the album kind of flitters in and out of your ears without standing outside the pack.

That is, until you get to the bonus tracks. What made the band make such a dramatic shift in sound? Who knows; anyway, the final four tracks on this CD come from the band's earlier 2000 EP, and, surprisingly enough, they sound a great deal like early Cradle Of Filth mixed with a good helping of punk rock. The result is fantastic: hypermelodic lead guitar is present everywhere (with a couple lines which I think are lifted directly from old Cradle Of Filth) and even the vocals have more than a passing resemblance to Dani Filth. This wouldn't be too notable if it wasn't for the huge punk influence, which when combined with the Cradle Of Filth worship makes this sound like black metal by way of pop-punk. The result isn't nearly as odious as you're imagining; on the contrary, it's memorable, fun, and an absolutely phenomenal listen. Hell, half the time I put this album on I skip directly to those tracks and ignore the 'real' album entirely.

I really recommend this album on the strength of the bonus tracks alone; hell, 'Polymorphous Perversion' itself is like an extended appetizer compared to those. Oldschool black/thrash fans will of course love this, but just about anyone else will get more than a little enjoyment out of the concluding quartet of songs. I rarely say this, but you can honestly pick up this album for the bonus tracks alone; they're just that good.