{"id":27875,"date":"2026-02-11T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/?p=27875"},"modified":"2026-02-04T18:20:46","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T18:20:46","slug":"mantas-winds-of-change-dissonance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/?p=27875","title":{"rendered":"Mantas &#8211; &#8216;Winds of Change&#8217; (Dissonance)"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft size-medium\"><a href=\"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/mantas_winds_of_change_cover.webp\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"257\" src=\"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/mantas_winds_of_change_cover-300x257.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-27876\" srcset=\"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/mantas_winds_of_change_cover-300x257.webp 300w, https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/mantas_winds_of_change_cover.webp 595w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p>Those lovely people at Cherry Red Records have put together a rather swanky reissue of the 1988 Mantas LP, &#8216;<em>Winds of Change&#8217;.<\/em> We all know Jeff \u2018Mantas\u2019 Dunn as the guitarist in black metal pioneers Venom. &#8216;<em>Winds of Change<\/em>&#8216; was released when Mantas had left Venom, and he almost left the music business completely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We all know the influence that Venom had on the speed\/thrash metal genre. The band were cited by Metallica, Slayer, etc., and their influential power helped form the Norwegian black metal movement in the \u201890s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8216;<em>Winds of Change&#8217;<\/em> is as far away from the Venom sound as you can imagine. What we have here is an AOR album with parptastic keyboards, melodic vocals, and God-awful electronic drums. Opening track Let it Rock gallops along and sounds like something from a low-budget \u201880s kung fu film soundtrack. The album really hasn&#8217;t aged well, I mean, there\u2019s some decent musicianship on display and vocalist Pete Harrison belts the (dodgy) lyrics out admirably, but it\u2019s all a bit cringe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tracks like<em> &#8216;Deceiver&#8217; <\/em>sound like what many metal bands did in the mid to late \u201880s; they jumped on the melodic bandwagon and softened their sound. Saxon are a classic example of this. However, it just sounds contrived and forced. &#8216;King of the Ring&#8217; has a decent enough shout-along chorus, but those bloody electronic drums are so overpowering. The mix is muddy and really affects the listening experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are a few bonus tracks, including a cover of Fleetwood Mac\u2019s &#8216;<em>Green Manalishi&#8217;.<\/em> The package is well put together with extensive liner notes and some great pictures. If you&#8217;re looking for Black Metal, then maybe Mantas of 1988 isn&#8217;t for you. If its somethingsofter, more melodic and to complete a set, then jump in. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Buy <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cherryred.co.uk\/catalogsearch\/result\/?q=mantas\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.cherryred.co.uk\/catalogsearch\/result\/?q=mantas\">Here<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Author: Kenny Kendrick<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Those lovely people at Cherry Red Records have put together a rather swanky reissue of the 1988 Mantas LP, &#8216;Winds of Change&#8217;. We all know Jeff \u2018Mantas\u2019 Dunn as the guitarist in black metal pioneers Venom. &#8216;Winds of Change&#8216; was released when Mantas had left Venom, and he almost left the music business completely. We [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27876,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[3031,2197,1614],"class_list":["post-27875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-review","tag-cherry-red-records","tag-mantas","tag-venom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27875"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27877,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27875\/revisions\/27877"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}