Manitou

Manitou, a progressive heavy metal band hailing from Karhula-area (the majestetical suburban of Kotka), Finland, was formed somewhere near 1998 with a little bit different line-up. The main point of a band was then play traditional heavy metal mixing little bit of a proggy elements here and there. The archetypes for Manitou are for example Queensryche, Iron Maiden, Ozzy, Tarot, Dio, Annihilator.



The first demo recording "Mad Moon Rising" was made by the band itself on a training place at the beginning of the year 1999 and it suffered from a poor sound quality because of that The next demo recordings were recorded on a local studio and those demos were called "Mercenary" 1999, "Machine Mind" 2000 and "Face the Snake" 2000. After "Face the Snake" one-song demo the band fired their second guitarist Turo Komulainen and he was replaced by Markus Vanhala, guitarist of a another local metal band Omnium Gatherum, and he debuted on a music video which was done from the song "Face the Snake" and it was broadcasted abundantly on Finnish music channel Moon TV. Following demos were "Brothers Promise" 2001 and "The Valley Of Evergreen" 2002 and band made also another music video from the song "Valley of Evergreen" at February 2002.



As a result of laziness the "Valley of Evergreen" demo was practically the first demo that the band ever sent to record companies or anywhere and the next thing was that Rage Of Achilles records from England signed them right after they received the "Valley." demo. The debut full-length album of Manitou was released through Rage Of Achilles (UK) at summer 2004. After that we get awesome feedback from different medias, like 5/5 review on legendary Kerrang! Magazine etc., and so on the first edition of the album were soon sold out.



Just after that in late 2004 Rage Of Achilles felt down because of finance problems, so Manitou had to find a new label to work with. It was good chance to re-release the album as a digipak with a couple of bonus tracks through Firebox Records in 2005. Some line-up changes appeared out too and after a mini-tour with Paul DiAnno, Manitou keyboardist Jukka Perälä was fired. Manitou didn't took no-one to cover him at this point and continued without keys on gigs.



Firebox Records signed Manitou for a new album and "Deadlock" album was recorded at Sound Supreme Studios with Janne Saksa engineering. The single "Fools In Control/Beat It" was released in March 2006 before the actual album release and it surprisingly reached the 2nd place on Finnish national single chart and the sky was now open for the band. Finnish TV-station used Manitous "Beat It" cover even on their Ice Hockey world championship broadcasts!



"Deadlock" album release followed soon, gained amazingly good reviews again among the metal medias and the band toured much in Finland and played also in Latvian metal festival. The "Deadlock" album was also licensed from Firebox Records to german Metal Heaven Records for central-european territories and to Spiritual Beast for Japan and Asian territories.



After the quick success of the 2nd album Manitou quickly went to the studio again to record the successor for the fine "Deadlock album. This time the recordings were made in local SouthEastSounds studios in Karhula with Teemu Aalto and mixed again in Sound Supreme studio in Hämeenlinna with Janne Saksa on board. The 3rd album and the magnum opus of Manitou called "No Signs Of Wisdom" was released in summer 2007 and the album presented Manitou in it's multifaceted form; the album consisted of Manitou classics like straight heavyrocker tunes like "Indolence" and "Dread Of The Freaks", Dio/Heaven&Hell like crushing title-track, more groovy tongue-in-cheek hard rock stuff like "Polluted World", Whitesnake Sykes style "Harbinger", prog-queensryche styled "Some Of The Sins Revealed", NWBHM like "The End Within", aggressive 90's alternative metal-like "The Loon" and the long & epic closing progmetal opus "The August Sky".



After the album release Manitou played a small amount of gigs in Finland and things started to quiet down more and more in the Manitou camp. At the beginning of 2009 Manitou recruited a new bad-ass keyboard/organ player Mikko Reinamo and started to compose new stuff more in the vein of old hard rock heroes, but too bad the things didn't work anymore inside the band chemistry and also lack of motivation problems arose. Manitou decided to split up and played their final gig at Dark River Festival 7.8.2009.



The good news are that four of the six Manitou members (Ismo Laukkanen / Markus Vanhala / Antti Laurén / Mikko Reinamo) have formed a new band where Manitou legacy will continue. More info on this project will be announced soon also in this website, so stay tuned! Vocalist Markku Pihlaja continues singing his balls out in Kaihoro and guitarist Markus Vanhala will also play in Omnium Gatherum and Malpractice bands in side of the new Mani-project.



MANITOU r.i.p. 1997-2009