Mantas
Death by Metal

Since 2001, December 13th has been a sad day for me; and today marks the fifteenth anniversary of that unfortunate date. The death of Charles Michael Schuldiner, better known as Chuck. Everything has been said and written about the musical creation shaped by the visionary and fervent mind of "Evil" Chuck: the monumental Death. Quite simply, my number ones in all of metallic extremism. And even on Debaser, the albums released by Death have been reviewed in an appropriate manner.

But before Death, there’s a dark and almost forgotten chapter; a fundamental step to understand the later prodigious development of Chuck's musical career. It's 1983, and the then sixteen-year-old forms Mantas in his hometown of Orlando, Florida; equally young Rick Rozz and Kam Lee are along for the ride. A series of demos were released, mostly recorded in the Schuldiner family's garage (I can imagine the neighbors' delight).

Once again, it's "Relapse Records" (I can never tire of sanctifying this label) that in 2012 brought together all the sparse and very crude recordings of Mantas, also trying to provide at least minimal cleaning to an obscene sound to say the least. This is how "Death By Metal" presents itself—a sort of compilation that in forty-five minutes recounts the musical journey of the group.

A journey that represents the genesis of a musical genre that would soon thereafter be named Death Metal. Chuck, despite being very young, had very clear ideas: to take inspiration from the early works of Venom and Slayer and push them to extreme limits, never heard before. Also considering the young musical idols of the leader, namely Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, who in those early eighties had already released sensational Heavy Metal records (just to name two, let's say "British Steel" and "Killers").

A series of chaotic, distorted songs that well represent the youthful exuberance of Mantas. Guitars played at a mad speed for those times, a drum sound that tears apart and often "covers" the rest of the instruments. A Speed-Metal forged with a technique as crude as it is effective. Live versions of the tracks are not lacking: even more incisive, even faster, even more wrecking. But the sparse audience doesn’t seem to appreciate these "beyond" sounds. We're in 1984 and we're still at least five years away from the definitive explosion of Death Metal on a global scale.

On that note, years ago I read an interview with Chuck describing their early concerts: "All the audience and local bands thought very poorly of us, our clothing (complete with fake blood dripping down our faces), our music. To them, we were just crap; we were struggling to piece together a new sound that people were not yet able to comprehend."

You will have your revenge, Chuck, the moment you transform Mantas into Death.

Here I stop; it's time to go listen again to the absolute masterpiece released by Chuck: "Human." I'll do it in the dark and in silence, remembering a friend in Music, a fellow '67 kid like me...TOGETHER AS ONE...

Ad Maiora.