Marianas Rest: More Than A Mirage

“We need to think – and that doesn’t come naturally for us so our heads hurt most of the time!” For a band whose music is so melancholy, Finland’s MARIANAS REST are certainly in high spirits when we caught up with vocalist Jaakko Mäntymaa and guitarist Nico Mänttäri to talk about their upcoming third album, Fata Morgana.

Taking inspiration from their homeland and the Baltic Sea, MARIANAS REST play a variant of melodic death metal that’s drenched in atmosphere shot through with an undercurrent of doom. Slow and emotive are the order of the day and their sound evokes the snow and desolation of a wintery land. Despite this, there’s still a glimmer of hope, whether it be in the occasional guitar line or the band’s attitude of carefully-optimistic pragmatism. “It’s going to be hard to make the album float around after its release, you cannot do things you normally do,” they observe of the difficulty and strangeness releasing an album at this time carries.

It’s a strange time all around, releasing albums when you can’t tour. “That’s a very important part of it for rock and metal bands to promote a new album and that sort of stuff so we need to figure something else out,” is their pragmatic take on the chaos of the last year. Though they recognise the importance of keeping their album in people’s minds where they can, you’re not necessarily going to see them on a screen near you. “The problem with livestreams – our manager said – it’s something nobody needed or wanted” is a fair assessment of the situation. Live music remains a lifeline for many artists – they can sell merch at the merch stand, engage with fans before and after, and win over new fans simply by playing to a crowd that’s not their own on a support slot. But that’s not the case now. “Social media, everything like that, is more important now than ever to make noise for yourself because you can’t see people and that stuff. We’re not social media naturals, it takes a lot of rehearsal and getting used to.”

That’s not to say they don’t have a presence – it’s just something that’s taken them a bit of time to figure out how they best want to engage with fans in this new world. “You have to find your own way to do it. It’s weird, for example, to write a story of your day because our lives aren’t that interesting! You have to get over these sorts of things and publish something, maybe along the way we’ll find our own way to do it,” is their self-deprecating, but honest and forward-thinking assessment. One thing they don’t like, in their own words, is to create “a lot of noise out of nothing.” Perhaps luckily for them, it’s not nothing. Fata Morgana is the sound of a band confident in themselves, despite being a young band only on their third album.

Despite this relative newcomer status, the band have learned a lot in a short time, especially during their first two albums and now this, their third overall and first for Napalm Records. When we asked how working with them came about, they certainly had a story to tell. “Well thinking of how we got the deal in the first place, we sent some of our old material after a drunken night! We thought that it would not lead us anywhere, just a lucky shot in the dark. Then they replied to us, it landed in our junk mail and nobody saw it until a month later – we thought we fucked it up!” They laugh as they recount the tale. A humorous mistake, but not one that tanked the deal before it got off the ground. “It feels like they really believe in us and this material. I have to imagine it’s not the easiest band to book when you have 2000 Facebook followers and no one has heard of us outside of Finland!”

Besides their newfound skill of checking their junk mail, MARIANAS REST were under no misapprehensions about the challenges of working with a much larger label – but the album itself came together well for them. “In the studio I can’t say pressure but I think we were a bit more focused trying to make the best out of what we have. A big part is that we have the same producer, so the making process is very familiar and the writing sessions were very easy.” Comfortable in their own skin, the band felt it was the right time to perhaps not quite branch out, but to experiment a little more with how they approached certain songwriting aspects. “If there was a song that felt too light or pretty on previous albums, we probably would have put it part of the sickest death metal to even things out, but now we took a different approach. We knew everything would sound like it comes from our band, even if it wouldn’t be as heavy. Sometimes it can sound heavier if you don’t force the double bass or the sick guitar tremolos all over the place. That was the main thing!”

Whatever the future holds, MARIANAS REST have both the atmospheric, melancholic melodeath soundtrack and the pragmatism to keep pushing forward in an increasingly uncertain world.

Fata Morgana is out now via Napalm Records. 

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