This one feels like it came from below the floorboards. Mandy Manala’s debut is soaked in something old, heavy, and weirdly alive – like someone lit a candle in an abandoned rehearsal space and this is what came crawling out.
They’re from Vaasa, Finland, but they don’t lean on that as a gimmick. No frostbitten clichés. Just five people who clearly know how to build something loud and haunted, piece by piece. You can hear the years in their playing – there’s patience here, weight behind every part, no rush to prove anything. Call it doom-tinged stoner rock with a gothic pulse, not the kind that mimics, but the kind that mutates. Riffs drag and lurch, but with unexpected shimmer. There’s melody here, but it’s cracked and unsettled. It feels closer to the real rock show! You can hear stoner-fried shades of Metallica, Black Sabbath, and Ghost.
Christa’s voice pulls the whole thing forward. She doesn’t belt for attention. She tells it straight, low when it needs to be, cracked wide open when it turns sharp. You believe her, even when you don’t want to.
The guitars grind and shimmer, sometimes both at once. There’s groove in the riffs, but it’s not showy. Nothing here is polished up for the playlist crowd. Bass and drums stay locked in, never pushing, just holding. The whole thing sounds like it was recorded in a room that still has blood on the walls from some other band’s last fight.
Lyrically it digs into the good dark stuff, not horror-movie camp, but the slow decay kind: mental collapse, strange rituals, quiet panic under a smile. It’s personal without feeling confessional, like they’re speaking in symbols but you still catch the meaning.
The production gets it right: warm, gritty, not afraid of quiet when it counts. It lets the weight of the songs sit there, unhurried.
They’re not out to tour the world or get shoved on every playlist. That’s clear. This is a band that makes records because they have to, not because they’re trying to “make it.” And that alone is rare enough now.
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Released by Octopus Rising on May 23, 2025
Music source for review – Grand Sounds PR
