Review: Manticora – To Live to Kill to Live

Style: Power/Prog/Thrash/Death/Black (clean vocals)
Review by: Matt
Country: Denmark
Release date: August 28, 2020

Manticora is a band that has always sounded good on paper – dark power metal, mature writing, heaviness on par with thrash – yet their good ideas often got stuck in forgettable songs. You can usually count on one or two awesome tracks from them, but the only album I found great all the way through was 8 Deadly Sins. Even so, I make sure to try everything they release, because they’re capable of this: 20+ years into their career, Manticora just struck gold.

To Live to Kill to Live is a continuation of 2018’s To Kill to Live to Kill, in what might be the best naming gimmick ever. I can’t be the only one who thought, “Didn’t this already come out?” If you missed the first one, don’t worry, as the plot is tough to follow either way. There’s two sadistic murderers, though I think one of them is supposed to be the good guy, and there’s something about revenge and a cursed sword. Luckily, singer Lars Larsen wrote a whole book on the side, which I’ll be picking up soon. It’s described as “making American Psycho look like a trip to the local kindergarten,” so surely it’ll be well-written.

To Kill (the first one) had a lot of admirable qualities, especially the sincerity with which it tackled death metal parts on a power-prog album. Despite having tons of ambition and originality, it was somehow a bit boring still, lacking good hooks. I respected that album, but I love its sequel. To Live takes all of the elements from before and makes immediately gripping songs out of them. I don’t know what they did differently, but it sounds much more focused and intentional. It’s not simpler by any means, as shown by the monster 14-minute opener, but even that feels shorter than a 7-minute track would on the previous album.

The songs here go through many twists and turns, from clean odd-meter prog sections to full-on legitimate blackened death parts, but you can still catch glimpses of the “angrier Blind Guardian” sound they had back on Hyperion, and they tie everything together perfectly. “Katana – The Moths and the Dragonflies” might have lost its way if not for a shamelessly catchy chorus to come back to. “Slaughter in the Desert Room” goes from sounding like Nevermore, through a killer power metal chorus with female vocals, to a furious bridge that honest-to-god could have been done by Anaal Nathrakh. Have I mentioned that Manticora‘s new drummer is insane? Rather than being disjointed or gimmicky, all of this comes together into some supremely well-crafted songs that sound like an entirely new subgenre unto themselves.

A large chunk of the improvement here must also be credited to the vocals, which have been called an acquired taste so many times, the band has probably stopped caring. Lars sounds to me like an old guy version of Hansi Kursch who still manages to hit high notes by just being a tough old bastard. He’s not real big on vibrato or dynamics, and he has often sounded strained before, but you know what? He’s great on this – consistent and in control. He also knows more than anyone about the characters being depicted, so the sadism and rage sound genuine. His casual descriptions of mutilation (“making space, you could say”) recall vintage Lord Worm, despite a totally opposite delivery.

I think liking power metal will still be a prerequisite for liking To Live, but I can’t imagine not at least finding it interesting. There’s so many elements at play, and they work together surprisingly well. Aside from that, it’s just so gloriously… metal. This must be the heaviest power metal album ever recorded up till now. It makes Persuader look like a bunch of choirboys. It’s the intelligence tempering that heaviness, however, that makes To Live great. This is some innovative, exciting stuff, and I’m glad Manticora finally got all the stars to align on it. Likely my album of the year.

Recommended tracks: Katana – The Moths and the Dragonflies; The Farmer’s Tale pt. 3 – Eaten by the Beasts, Slaughter in the Desert Room, Through the Eyes of the Killer – Filing Teeth, Tasered/Removal, Katana – Beheaded
Recommended for fans of: Nevermore, Blind Guardian, Beyond Twilight
Final verdict: 9/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | Metal-Archives page

Label: ViciSolum Productions – Bandcamp | Website | Facebook

Manticora is:
– Lars Larsen (vocals)
– Kristian Larsen (guitars)
– Stefan Johansson (guitars)
– Kasper Gram (bass)
– Lawrence Dinamarca (drums)