Yet another instance where the bright vibrant artwork and interesting title intrigues me to pick up a record from the promo pile. Also when tags like “brutal death metal” and “technical death metal” are attached, the excitement already levels up. Luckily, I was not disappointed! Hailing from San Francisco, mæntra promises to be a sonic force of extreme musical elements. The band just dropped their newest album “Kundalini Rising” and I am here to discuss it.
The album opener "Muladhara" starts off with chromatic based riffs, quickly flowing into the sludgy groovy main riff. With a lot of dissonance in song-structure along with double bass blasting below, this song sets up the perfect atmosphere of the album.
With technical riffs and dissonance layering on top, "Svadhisthana" showcases a mixture of old-school Cryptopsy & Suffocation, while also keeping the brutal death metal touch of Origin to it. Also, the atmospheric synth embedded in the mix adds an outer-world ethereal vibe to the song. "Manipura" begins with a marching drum fill before bleeding into its catchy main riff. With a lot of moving around with dissonance based chords, this song also showcases some extreme drumming techniques, of what I believe to be the gravity blasts & blast beats.
"Anahata" features a brutal opening with electronic noises adding to the already chaotic madness. Of what I think to be the most powerful track of the album - this can be termed as the lethal version of extremity. "Vishuddha" carries forward the brutality of its preceding track, just adding percussion elements of tabla and sitar melody in the outro.
Guitars on "Ajna" tries to imitate alien sounds with its noises. With a slight hint of melody, this is yet another powerful track from the record. The outro track "Sahasrara" puts the groove in front, aiding with mainly tremolo based riffs, and few fast paced chugs and slam riffs in a few instances.
Each song on the album has a specially designed outro - from "Svadhisthana" ending with chants of OM and calming ending of "Ajna" to "Anahata" ending with sounds of an outer space creature trying to communicate. Each outro serves in the greater narrative of the song, an element worth noticing and mentioning.
“Kundalini Rising” is a dense record with its brutality having roots to earlier brutal tech-death like Origin. The guitar with its old-school tone provides riffs that provide many face-melting instances. The drums keep blasting through the entirety of the album, while keeping some memorable groove parts also. Evident through the record, mæntra certainty chose to keep the dissonance up-front. Also the atmospheric sonic sounds and frequencies add to the much needed atmosphere of the album. The thirty-three minutes of the album runtime seems justified, since no moment is wasted in showing the mæntra brutality!
Rating: 3.5/5.0
Website: https://maentr3.bandcamp.com/
Genre: Technical Death Metal, Brutal Death Metal
Worldwide Release: February 18th, 2022.
