Album Review: Marianas Rest - The Bereaved
Reviewed by Rich Oliver
When it comes to gloomy and melancholic metal, Finland has it down to a fine art.with a veritable plethora of such bands emanating from the country such as Swallow The Sun, Insomnium, Ghost Brigade, Hanging Garden, Rapture, Kaunis Kuolematon amongst many many others. One band hailing from the dark Baltic shores and purveyors of all things melancholic are Marianas Rest and they continue their journey into darkness, sorrow and melancholy with their fifth album “The Bereaved” - a concept album dealing with the aftermath of loss and the various stages of grief.
With themes rooted in grief, “The Bereaved” is a sorrowful and beautiful album with the ten songs that make up the album taking you on a journey through mourning and bereavement, The slow burn of ‘Thank You For The Dance’ opens up the album and sets the scene for what is to follow with mournful doomy songs such as ‘Rat In The Wall’, ‘Burden’, ‘Diamonds In The Rough’ and ‘The Colour Of You’ ensuring that emotion is high and the atmosphere is bleak.
As well as the excellent songwriting on the album, the performances are to be applauded with highlights being crushing riffs and stunning melodies from guitarists Harri Sunila and Nico Mänttäri, the haunting interwoven keyboards of Aapo Koivisto, the powerful rhythm section of bassist Niko Lindman and drummer Nico Heininen and the emotionally charged vocals of Jaakko Mäntymaa who utilises harsh vocals for the majority of the album but also includes some sumptuous clean vocals at the right moments.
“The Bereaved” is another excellent album from Marianas Rest who have released albums on a regular basis since their formation in 2013. Now on their fifth album, the band show no signs of decline with “The Bereaved” being one of the strongest releases from Marianas Rest. A wonderful of mix of doom, melodic death and post-metal with strong themes of grief and mourning and interesting concepts and notions such as the question of who suffers more from death - those who pass on or those who are left behind. If you are a fan of the doomy and gloomy side of metal then “The Bereaved” is a highly recommended album.
