Album Review: ‘Phantoms’ by Marianas Trench
By: The Shape Of A Sound
Tags: Pop Rock, Marianas Trench, Album Review, Review

Background

Marianas Trench may have four members, but the band’s success is really a tribute to the efforts of their frontman Josh Ramsay. Writing all of the band’s music while also crafting the image the band tours with, he is very much the groups ringleader, and based on his upbringing, that’s no surprise at all.

Lead singer Josh Ramsay’s family singing their Christmas card from his sister’s SoundCloud

Born into a musical family, Marianas Trench’s lead singer Josh Ramsay has never been a stranger to limelight. His father once owned Little Mountain Sound Studios, which ended up becoming a home to some of the 80s biggest rock acts, like Bon Jovi, Aerosmith and AC/DC. His mother, a vocal coach who recorded and toured with Leonard Cohen, and his sister works as a vocal coach and has been known to provide background vocals on every Marianas Trench album so far, as well as getting on stage with her brother when she can.

“Say Anything”, the lead single Fix Me

With this strong foundation, Ramsay went on to gather his bandmates together into a group called Ramsay Fiction, which was later renamed Marianas Trench. Ramsay Fiction recorded a few songs, but it wasn’t until the name and final lineup change that the band released their first EP, and were signed to 604 Records, the label begun by Nickelback’s Chad Kroeger. On October 3, 2006 the band released their debut studio album Fix Me, and exploded onto the scene. Known amongst their peers for non-stop touring, Marianas Trench broke out into the mainstream with their single “Say Anything”. Featuring a harder, more guitar driven pop punk/rock sound than their later releases, the album lyrically saw Ramsay struggling openly with his past drug addiction.

“All To Myself”, one of the singles from Masterpiece Theatre

Building on the momentum they started with their first album, the band went back into the studio and released their 2009 sophomore effort: Masterpiece Theatre. A slight departure from the heavier sound and lyrics featured on Fix Me, the album featured more instrumental experimentation, adding in piano and string sections on different songs, while still not losing sight of the overall pop punk/rock sensibility that they were known for. The branching out in sound turned out to be an overall success for the band, as the album sold 5,000 during it’s first week, and peaked at number four on the Canadian Billboard charts. A critical success as well as commercial, Ramsay was praised for pushing himself vocally on the album, and the band was applauded for their lyrics, and their expanded, more theatrical sound. The band went on to win Pop Recording of the Year at the Western Canadian Music Awards, and the album was certified gold by the end of 2009, platinum by the end of the next year, and is now double platinum as of 2018.

“Stutter”, one of the singles from Ever After

After months of fan speculation about what the band’s next move would be, Ramsay announced that their next album was in the works, and would be called Ever After. Acting again as a musical departure for the band, it saw the band experimenting even further, trying out different electronic elements, and flirting with a more modern-pop sound. That’s not to say they lost their rock edge, because they didn’t. Tracks like the “Stutter” showed the band’s willingness to try out new sounds while still maintaining the excitement and energy they brought to their previous releases. The album was met with wide praise by both fans and critics, and was even nominated for Pop Album of the Year at the 2012 Juno Awards (Canada’s equivalent to the U.S.’s Grammy Awards). It’s success lead to (in a similar fashion to it’s predecessor), being certified Gold, Platinum and Double Platinum in a similar timeframe. Also worth noting during this timeframe was Ramsay’s involvement with the Carly Rae Jepsen tack “Call Me Maybe”. Originally a folk song, Ramsay was brought in to help give the track a more pop-leaning sound, and co-wrote and produced the final version of the song, which went on to blow up and become an international success.

“Pop 101” a single from the Something Old/Something New EP

On top of constant touring, the next few years saw Marianas trench release two EPs. The first, entitled Face the Music, a lyric from their previous album, featured two songs from it, as well as two new acoustic versions. The EP served as the band’s first official U.S. release, and was meant as an introduction to the band for an international audience. After finishing touring with Ever After, the band released single “Pop 101”. It was soon followed up by single “Here’s to the Zeroes”, and both were meant to be the beginning of the new album cycle. However, the band would later announce that both tracks were being cut from the album as they no longer fit the tone and sound of the album, but would be included on an EP titled Something Old / Something New along with remastered versions of two of the very first tracks the band released on their self-titled EP.

And then all at once, everything shifted. Ramsay found himself hospitalized with pancreatitis, and was out of the game for a while. Left alone to stress of having to follow up the success of not only the band’s biggest album to date, but the commercial success of “Call Me Maybe”, he found himself in an incredibly dark place, but was able to pull himself out through working on what would later become the band’s fourth album, Astoria.

“Who Do You Love” the third single from Astoria

The album, released in October of 2015, proved to be again a shift in sound for the band, but also their most grand undertaking to date. Highly influenced by 80s adventure movies and the music of the time, the album features a wide variety of sounds, featuring 5 orchestral transition pieces, an and is also their longest album to date coming in at 17 tracks. One stand-out track, “Who Do You Love” features incredible harmonies, and a powerful Toto-esque drum beat, ended up becoming the band’s most successful single at adult contemporary radio, and was later certified platinum. The album proved to be wildly popular with fans, being certified gold only a few months after it’s release. Astoria saw the band achieve a higher level of recognition in the U.S. than they had previously achieved. Headlining multiple U.S. tours in support of the album, the band was set to make this album cycle on of their strongest.

“End of an Era”, the closing track on Astoria

Closing the album with the cinematic “End of an Era”, Marianas trench set an incredibly high bar for what they were capable of musically. Known for ending their album’s large, theatrical cuts that mixed lines from the album’s previous tracks in a collage-like fashion, “End of An Era” took the tradition a step farther, and tied the band’s entire career up to that point together in one track. Featuring musical elements from every album released so far, the song is their longest release to date, coming in at 7 minutes and 40 seconds long, but the time is well spent. The power, intensity and raw emotion of the song lead many fans to think the song would be the last the band ever released.

“I Knew You When”, the lead single from Phantoms

Taking the band and their sound out of the 80s, Ramsay decided to explore songwriting towards a project set in a haunted house. “The funny thing with the whole record is I wanted it set in a haunted house — ridiculous, I know — but one haunted by the ghost of former loves and the spooky sounds that accompany that.” Using modern song-writing techniques but using more classic, organic approaches to sounds, Ramsay hoped to create an album that sounded modern, but could be made with ‘real’ instrumentation, instead of just being electronic-driven. On November 16th, 2018, the band released the first single “I Knew You When”, announcing an upcoming tour shortly afterwards. The band found themselves in a difficult position, struggling to finish recording and finalizing the album before their upcoming tour in March of 2019. The album was eventually released on March 1st, 2019, and within 24 hours of it’s release went to #1 on both the Canadian and U.S. iTunes charts, taking a spot that up to that point was held firmly by Ariana Grande’s thank u, next.