I Complain Too Much

Rant - Why do I love Marianas Trench?

I am going to talk about something that isn't at all BTS related, because there are groups other than BTS that I listen to and stan and fangirl over. 

Oh my gosh. That must mean I'm a fake ARMY! I must only love BTS and only listen to their - I'm kidding. That was a joke. I know that you won't have that opinion, wonders, at least I hope you won't. 

Anyway. Let's get to the whole point of this. 

I missed the release of a new album by one of the groups I love a lot, by about two months, because I wasn't keeping myself notified properly. My own fault, partially driven by bad memory and busy life and Kpop comebacks and everything. But late is better than never. 

Who are we talking about? What is this album? And why make a chapter about it? Why, I'm glad you asked. Or I pretended that you asked (shh it ruins the immersion). 

Marianas Trench with their new (two months old) album Phantoms. For those who love them, you'll already know why it deserves a whole chapter of me dying over their musical brilliance. For those of you who are unfamiliar to this artistry, I'm about to put an end to your suffering and explain exactly what it is about this little alternative rock band that I love so much. And about the genius of Josh Ramsay's song writing - namely this album. 

To give you a time scale of my own introduction to this incredible group, it actually came before my introduction to the Kpop scene (which in turn was BTS). I was watching musical edits of Dan and Phil on YouTube (as you do) in 2015 and one of the songs stood out to me. A song called Desperate Measures. And I listened to the original and fell in love with their unique sound now that it was in the proper pitch and everything. 

They'd just come out with a new album, when I properly joined the party. An album called Astoria, based off of the lead singer (Josh) and his struggles over the years before it was released. He'd had a sort of personal emotional high, of engagements and awards and the like, and then everything sort of fell apart, and his engagement broke down very quickly. He was very ill and his mother deteriorated in health as well. 

And then when he got out of hospital he went straight back into songwriting to get himself out of the black hole he'd been in. Creating Astoria, a concept album using 80s techniques and instruments and based off of the Goonies. He saw his experiences as a sort of adventure, and so drew inspiration from those and from the film to write the whole album. 

Among others, there is a song to his mother, in which he promises to care for her as she cared for him (as she is fighting dementia). It's called 'Forget Me Not' and it's truly beautiful in my eyes. We also have the harmonic masterpiece of 'Who Do You Love', and the music video budget for that was used on charitable causes. Which they filmed and shared via the eventual music video, but technicalities. 

The other members of the band are equally as important - Mike on the bass, Ian on the drums, and Matt on the guitar. Josh is a guitarist and pianist as well. They're like his family now, as I see it, and they help with harmonies and performing and writing and instrumentation and touring and music videos and- 

I could go on for years. But for your sake, I'll move on. 

The new album. Back to the new album. 

The harmonies have really improved, and it becomes so much more of a focus, which is wonderful to hear because my ears are particularly fond of crunchy slightly electronic harmonies (which is partially why Jamais Vu is my favourite out of the Persona songs). There's a real intent behind every musical element, a meaning and a reason for everything. 

And what Josh does well that I struggle with myself in songwriting, what makes him such a good writer in my eyes, is that he comes back to ideas he's used and he incorporates them in new ways. He links the ending of Astoria (a song called End of an Era) to the last song in Phantoms - The Killing Kind. And when I first heard it, I had tears in my eyes. 

Well, through the whole album, but that's just because everything was so well done. There's more synthesis and more exploration of effects and stuff here, and I think Astoria couldn't really do that as much because of the whole '80s' thing they chose to go with. Which worked, don't get me wrong, and I loved it more than I can possibly explain. But there's more sampling and exploration of synthesis and electronic stuff within Phantoms, mixed in with the classical rock sound. 

They mix these things so well, and that's partially why I love them so much. They can create catchy songs that mean something and are meant to be a comfort and a message and something more than a dance track  - me being someone who likes to really listen to the music I hear, it's nice to have so many elements in one song to focus on. It's a new discovery with every single listen. 

We get to hear so much more dynamic range and pitch range and instrument range, and I think that's what makes it so powerful, because it's conflicting and resolving and discordant and beautiful at once. It's got interesting chords and musical ideas, some fascinating lyrics and incredible vocals - and musical talent in general. You can feel something when you hear Josh's voice grate over a high note, and it's not concern for his vocal cords - or envy that you can't do that similar growl sound without tearing your throat to shreds, goddammit - it's the emotion he holds within his voice. 

That is what music can be about sometimes. A sheer outpouring of emotion and realism and the understanding that life can't be as perfect as you think. That's what my favourite groups give to their work. BTS do it as well, hence why I love them.

But so do Marianas Trench. So listen to the album and tell me if you think I'm wrong to love them or not. But give it a listen. You won't regret it. 

They put the 'art' in artist.