Ancient Times

This one was a grower- I didn't find it particularly special the first couple times I heard it, but a few more listens and you can consider me thoroughly hooked. On the surface, Mangled doesn't look especially promising: they're a pretty nondescript Dutch death metal band who only got around to releasing an album in '98 and whose releases tend to clutter budget sections on metal distros. In actuality though, I'm pretty amazed by just how interesting this album manages to be in the face of all the strikes against it. Mangled's debut is a consistent and ambitious release with a lot of well-placed stylistic elements that go a long way towards making it more memorable, and it seems to embody a fusion of oldschool and modern styles of death metal more more elegantly than most records I've seen attempt such a combination.

Mangled's sound is most similar to a somewhat doomy, highly melodic take on the Stockholm sound- they have the same buzzing Sunlight guitar tone, the same affinity for somewhat thrashy uptempo passages, and similar riff construction. The central difference is that Mangled, while occasionally going for the Entombed sense of darkness, often take a more melodic, circuitous route, and the melodic style is definitely something interesting. Sort of a fusion of mid-era Dismember with some doom/death or even funeral doom, Mangled tends to abandon the chunkier death metal for airier, more wafting and ethereal melodic sections when the opportunity presents itself. At no point does the band go for overt, Gothenburg-style harmonization; Mangled tends to carve its melodies out of a handful of barren, textured chords, like Thergothon at quadruple speed. While the more traditional death metal sections are solid, it's when the melody takes the reins that the album truly comes into its own.

There's a lot of fantastic moments on this records: the crushing, doomy breakdown with an odd similarity to Crowbar on 'Eve Of Mourning', the busy yet elegant lead construction and swaying drums of 'The Sleeping Paradise', and even the self-titled closing track which sounds like a deranged mixture of Morbid Angel and, again, Thergothon. The comparison to the latter band is actually not a throwaway one- Mangled seems to indulge in the sort of sparse, ethereal melodies than Thergothon specialized in, and hearing that sound in the context of an otherwise normal death metal record makes it pretty fascinating. Then again, it's bolstered by the fact that the normal death metal is so well-composed; even at their thrashiest and most straightforward, Mangled leave space for some neat drumming, a cool lead, or a sudden songwriting break into an unexpected direction.

This is definitely one to pick up for the oldschool death metal fans, but I think this album contains some ideas that stretch beyond that relatively restrictive idea. Mangled were definitely reaching for something ambitious and memorable with this record, and they mostly succeed. Give this a few solid listens and I think you'll definitely find something to brood over.