Day: November 15, 2019

After a splendid first album like Horror Vacui, released in 2016, there was a certain expectation for a sort of litmus test that for a band is the second full length, the one that has the task of consolidating and maybe evolving what was already good shown on the occasion of the debut. Ruins actually goes far beyond expectations, projecting the Finnish band to the top of a melodic death doom scene that, in the land of a thousand lakes, seems to draw on an apparently inexhaustible golden thread. Marianas Rest introduces themselves with Kairos, a song whose rhythmic and vocal interpretation shows more than a black inclination that goes well with the tension-rich progression, softened by the melodic contribution of an always superb guitar work; the following song, The Spiral, is another of the main beams of the work, by virtue of a development that is sometimes quieter but highly dramatic. After a quarter of an hour of magnificently intense music, the Finnish band continues to unleash songs that leave no room for delays or fillers: the rhythms tend to accelerate on average without, however, the sense of melancholy that pervades the entire work ends up being overshadowed; among these tracks stands out an enthralling Unsinkable, which seems the ideal synthesis of a sound that best connects the tragic looming of the best Swallow The Sun with the Insomnium’s melodic vocation. When you get to the end of another gem like Restitution, more than satisfied with what you’ve already heard, with the final track Omega the archiving of Ruins as an excellent record is questioned since such an evaluation risks to appear even ungenerous: the masterpiece song finds its place right at the end, with its irresistible emotional crescendo that leads to a final dominated by a very long and moving guitar solo. Like the eagle, which is the symbol and the name in the mother tongue of their city, Kotka, Marianas Rest take a majestic flight towards the highest peaks of the genre, sitting with equal dignity at the same table of those bands that have represented the natural and inevitable source of inspiration.

2019 – Inverse Records