Mantar’s debut album Death by Burning may be a raw sounding album, but it is a monstrous display of heavy riffing accompanied by doom and even black metal influences. This two piece German and Turkish band are a heavy force, even when they exclude any sort of bass guitar into the mix. Just guitar and drums make up the recordings, which is shocking due to this band’s large sound with small numbers. Mantar was still able to capture something raw and fun, and left me amazed that such a small band could sound heavier than even a five member group.

The first track on the album, Spit, displays just what this two man band can achieve, and achieve tremendously they do. The heaviness immediately emerges in a great jamming notion. The guitar turns over on one attractive riff right after the other and manages to capture a "doomy" rock atmosphere with a cloud of black metal. The deep tones of the guitars do make it possible for the absence of a bass, as the song Cult Witness will show when the galloping rhythm of guitar and drums clash to make an enormous sound.

Into the Golden Abyss was one of the most outstanding tracks on the album. The force of the opening drums only set up for a heavier sound from the raw and weighty guitar that laid in wait. The song turned to sound a bit more atmospheric with some dark keyboard sampling that was a great touch to this killer track. At this point on the album the music took me by storm, but I noticed the vocals had an obvious black metal sound to them but with a shade of a punk style coating.

The instruments get a bit more black metal with tracks like The Huntsmen where blast beating is heard, but it keeps the album’s heavy oriented atmosphere the main focus. The album is purely rich in heaviness, and likes to dive deep into pits of darkness at moments. Overall this two piece metal band took me by surprise with their raw and monstrous sound. They may be small, but they jam with an unbelievably gigantic sound that some larger bands fail to achieve. It’s quite astounding that a single guitar and drums was the culprit of this one seriously damn heavy album.