Sick Melo-Death-Doom Alert: Marianas Rest, “Pointless Tale”

I’ll likely never grow tired of the kind of melo-death-doom pedaled by bands like Insomnium, Swallow the Sun, Omnium Gatherum, Harakiri for the Sky, etc. They strike the perfect mix of darkness and light, fitting given they’re often from parts of the world that experiences seasonal extremes of both. More than anything it always just hits me right in that spot.

Enter Marianas Rest, a Finnish outfit I’d not heard of before their soon-to-be-released new album showed up in my inbox, but who very much should appeal to fans of all of those bands, as they do to me.

Most of the newer acts coming out of that scene have a twist, and if I were to identify Marianas Rest’s angle based on just their newest single, “Pointless Tale,” I’d say it’s that the vocals lean slightly towards the blackened side. This particular tune is also a slower, dirgier one… not sure if that’s representative of the whole record, but it’s different from the bangers on the genre torch-bearer Across the Dark, for example. But these are snap judgments on my part and subject to error… use your own ears and see what you think.

The band’s Jaakko Mäntymaa explains of the song:

“’Pointless Tale’ tries to sum up the desperation that you sometimes feel when looking at how this world works. It is easy to break structures that someone has spent a lifetime building. And a lot of the time we build things without stopping to think what for.”

Marianas Rest’s new album, Fata Morgana, comes out this Friday, March 12; pre-order here.