When one takes into consideration the very influence of metal, it tends to be that the imagination of the typical fan doesn’t reach all that far, relatively. Sure, specific places come to mind in regards to different sounds: black metal might incur frozen forests tinged with the darkest magics, death metal deep below the earth in crumbling catacombs surrounded by the rising dead, thrash metal somewhere in a concrete jungle dying to tear all the walls around down in explosive fashion – the list goes on! But, wherever there is imagination the very concept of metal can be stretched into something damn near unrecognizable. Plenty of names have taken this concept and ran with it to great lengths, but it has to be from the American South that we are able to witness a transformation of those concepts into a creation that would elicit panic attacks from elitists all over: Manos Six and the Muddy Devil.
Instantly from the very cover art of “Swamp Suicide”, doubts pop into the mind of those who wouldn’t consider themselves adventurous with their listening habits. For those of us who are, though, the very existence of Manos Six and the Muddy Devil is one that causes nothing but supreme curiosity. In no small way, it’s with the ten tracks that this duo drag forth out of the mossy marshes which are rippling with the very whisper of Lucifer that we’re given a creation that borrows a good deal from the themes of black metal with the visual and thematic aspects of the band crashing together with a banjo-driven collection of foot-stomping sermons that are almost too inviting for being so damned strange right from the get-go. The very bones of “Swamp Suicide” make it an interestingly simplistic creation with it truly feeling as though someone came upon a centuries-old house in the middle of the deep American South, found two guys jamming to satanic themes as they stomp their boots rhythmically on their wooden porch, placed a microphone down, and just sat there as they sang about death in the tall grass and the sins that swim amongst the alligators and ride on the very wind. Incredibly few names across the very wide realm of metal as a whole would be able to bring such a concept to the table, but it’s by only embodying the concepts of metal to then create a sound that is wholly their own with “Swamp Suicide”.
It is effortlessly that Manos Six and the Muddy Devil make themselves a name that utterly stands out from the crowd with a sound that would surely cause many to reel in disgust, but I cannot help but implore the adventurous and the curious to investigate for this creation. Far from anything that will likely blow your mind but such a shift from what we would consider metal to become something that doesn’t care for any sound but its own along with the incantations it brings forward, “Swamp Suicide” is something that has opened many doors in many different ways. All you have to do is open them.
You can listen to “Swamp Suicide” via F*cking Your Creation Records on Bandcamp here.
Track Listing:
1. Swamp Suicide
2. The Devil Take My Hand
3. Old Time Religion
4. Evil is the Law
5. Lucifer
6. Fire
7. Willo Tree
8. Stay Away
9. Hell is the Law
10. Ain’t No Grave
