Manntra – Nightcall

Manntra
Nightcall
NoCut/SPV
November 12^th, 2021
Playing time: 09:38

Once again, an invitation to a review where the press text is quite unproductive. Not even the ID3 tags in the downloaded files were correct. So, a wrong playing order was suggested. Anyway, the folk metal band Manntra from Croatia has released two albums so far. The last one this year was “Monster Mind Consuming”. Not true either. On their homepage as well as on Amazon you can find five of them. And already in November, the quartet followed up with an EP. Apart from that, you can only find out very few things about the band. So, let’s listen to the music instead.

With “No Time To Die” you can hear how good a James Bond theme song can sound if you lift it away from Pop into the Metal universe. To my ears, much better than the original by Billie Eilish. There is not much Folk to be heard here. But all the more in “Naranča”. At the beginning you think a Finnish humpa band is playing. But no, it’s not quite that bad. Here (as before) female vocals can be heard. Unfortunately, the press info is silent about this too. You only read that Manntra go back to their roots. But these are much better than those of many German folk rock/metal bands. The title song “Nightcall” follows at the end. Here you can read something about a “cryptic Industrial Metal number”. You can see it that way, but you don’t have to. A nice midtempo rocker, with dark and heavy riffs.

Well, I like the EP. Far from the well-trodden Folk Metal paths, Rock and Metal dominate here. The Folk quotations are discreet. For me, it’s an incentive to listen to the band’s albums.

Manntra – Nightcall (Official Lyric Video): https://youtu.be/SRAYjT1TGUk

Lineup:

Marko M. Sekul – Lead Vocals
Andrea Kert – Drums
Marko Purišić – Guitar, Backing Vocals
Zoltan Lečei – Bass, Backing Vocals, Flute

Track list:

• No Time To Die
• Naranča
• Nightcall