The Modern Art of Setting Ablaze
| The Modern Art of Setting Ablaze | ||||
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| Studio album by Mantar | ||||
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Publication |
August 24, 2018 |
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| Label (s) | Nuclear Blast | |||
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Title (number) |
12 |
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running time |
47 min 44 s |
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Hanno Klänhardt |
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Studio (s) |
Black Bear Studio, Gainesville |
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The Modern Art of Setting Ablaze is the third studio album by the German band Mantar . It was released on August 24, 2018 via Nuclear Blast .
Emergence
Mantar's first two albums were created through numerous jam sessions, so singer and guitarist Hanno Klänhardt wrote most of the new material in his new home in Gainesville in the US state of Florida . Klänhardt took his time and wrote songs that were often around six minutes long. Then both musicians rented a rehearsal room in their hometown of Bremen in early 2018 . Over the next six weeks, Klänhardt sifted through the material with the drummer Erinç Sakarya and the songs were shortened to three to four minutes. It was important for the band to highlight their own strengths and throw away unnecessary ballast.
“But with this third album it was very important to us that people no longer say that this is a great Death Metal record or a great Doom , Sludge or Punk record. I wanted people to say that this is your best MANTAR record yet. That is very important to me"
The album was recorded in the Black Bear Studio in Gainesville. As with the two previous albums, Hanno Klänhardt took over the production, while Jonathan Nuñez from the band Torche helped out as sound engineer . Erinç Sakarya only needed 48 hours to record his drum parts. The Modern Art of Setting Ablaze was recorded entirely live. Due to lack of time, the singing had to be recorded in Miami Beach . Kländhardt was in the next room of a small apartment . Unsatisfied with this situation, the singing was recorded in just six hours. Normally, it takes Klänhardt ten days to spare his voice. For the songs Age of the Absurd and Seek + Forget were music videos rotated.
The album cover
_by_Bernhard_Hoetger_(1936).jpg)
For the album cover , the band used the bronze relief Der Lichtbringer by Bernhard Hoetger , which has been hanging under the entrance to Böttcherstraße in Bremen since 1936 . The relief was created by Hoetger as a gift to Adolf Hitler , but was rated as Degenerate Art . Hoetger was expelled from the NSDAP . At Hitler's request, the work was left hanging “ as a chilling example of what was passed off as culture and architecture in the time before we came to power. "
“We took a piece of art and awakened it from a historical context that personally reminds me of the present day, of the current climate of looking away and remaining silent until it is too late. The actual intention of the picture disgusts me to the point of vomiting. But using it is meant to show that it is as relevant as ever. That all of this is due to incorrect programming of the human system, that people like to hide in the crowd and hate everything that is not like themselves. "
Today the plant is a listed building .
background
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The album title continues the fire theme of the previous album titles and refers to the current situation of humanity. The title stands for a highly flammable social climate. The band wants to hold up the mirror to people.
“[People] no longer have the desire or competence to learn from mistakes and are quickly seduced by false facts. Humanity tends to blindly follow some false prophets, leaders and despots and go into fire for them. The title is a bit cynical, of course, because I believe that humans are unteachable and fall for peasant catchers just as much now as they did 5000 years ago. "
In the song Age of the Absurd , Hanno Klänhardt describes what, in his opinion, is morbid, fascination with watching people laugh as they run into a chainsaw . Humans would act like lemmings . The song Midgard Serpent (Seasons of Failure) refers to the Midgard serpent from Germanic mythology . It is a sea serpent that spans the world. For Hanno Klänhardt, the Midgard snake symbolizes the "cycle of human failure to break out of one's own compulsion and one's own stupidity".
Anti Eternia is also the title of an episode in the He-Man action figure series . As a little joke, the band built in what Klänhardt said was a "completely exaggerated" guitar solo that uses the tapping technique and is inspired by Van Halen . In the song Kländhardt asks why a person should hope for salvation or eternal life when they die.
reception
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Reviews
For Arne Helms from the German magazine Visions , the album would be “tidier and more uncompromising” and, in contrast to its predecessors, “has more playful finesse to offer”. Mantar would “package the pure and bellicose malice of their sound even more forcefully”. For Lothar Gerber from the German magazine Metal Hammer, Mantar “haven't forgotten how to play clubs”. The two musicians have “brutalized their sound and taken it to the next level”. The fact that Mantar "makes you think" with the choice of the album cover would be "highly creditable" to the band. Gerber awarded five out of seven points.
Chart placements
The Modern Art of Setting Ablaze entered the German album charts at number seven. For the first time Mantar achieved a placement in the top ten. In Austria the album reached number 53 and in Switzerland number 54. For Mantar it was the first chart positions in these countries.
Awards
The German online magazine Metal.de placed The Modern Art of Setting Ablaze in third place of the 25 best albums of 2018.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Isabell Raddatz: Four fists for a firestorm . In: Rock Hard , September 2018, page 40
- ↑ a b Markus Endres: "When we founded, we had nothing to do with the metal scene, and all of a sudden I realize that I'm talking to metal.de!" Metal.de, accessed on September 7, 2018 .
- ↑ a b Jan Schwarzkamp: Music to shoot with . In: Visions , issue 306, page 24
- ^ Confidential report to the senators from Lord Mayor Heider, 1936, State Archives Bremen, quoted in after Golücke, pp. 98 and 127, note 20
- ↑ a b Christina Wenig: The Enlighteners . In: Metal Hammer , September 2018, page 81
- ↑ Charts DE Charts AT Charts CH
- ↑ Arne Helms: Mantar: The Modern Art of Setting Ablaze. Visions, accessed September 7, 2018 .
- ↑ Lothar Gerber: Mantar: The Modern Art of Setting Ablaze. Metal Hammer. Retrieved September 7, 2018 .
- ↑ Marc Thorbrügge: 3rd place: MANTAR - The Modern Art Of Setting Ablaze. Metal.de, accessed on January 6, 2019 .
Web links
- The Modern Art of Setting Ablaze at Allmusic (English)