Band : The Man-Eating Tree
Album title : Vine
Label : Cobra Records – Century Media
Distributor : EMI
Release date : 27/09/2010
Release : CD

Following the controlled ending of his former band Sentenced (which had grown from a brutal Death Metal act with fitting rough vocals, founded in 1989, to a more technical and melodic outfit during the '90s – when their grunter came down with vocal problems, the others recruited a clean type singer in stead, and continued to release epic album upon epic album, until in late 2004 they unanimously decided to end the band in 2005 following some farewell shows at European festivals), drummer Vesa Ranta fell in somewhat of a “writers block” period, and spent his time as photographer and opening a bar in his hometown of Oulu, North Finland. Along with some other musicians (Poisonblack's guitarist Janne Markus, Reflexion's Aaron Rantonen and bassist Mikko Uusimaa), his former bandmate and guitarist Miika Tenkula kept buggin' him to start a new band, and during the many talks they had they envisioned a musical direction for the band.

Eventually Ranta gave in, and in early 2009 the mentioned musicians came together for a first rehearsal/ jam session (actually, Markus had a batch of ideas ready for use). That was without a singer though, because the guys' search for one had come up empty so far. The month of February would be a memorable one, both drenched in ultimate sadness and ecstatic joy. While on a photography session further North in Finland, Ranta got word that his good friend Miika Tenkula had died. In the week following his friend's burial, Ranta was recommended to check out Fall Of The Leafe's singer Tuomas Tuominen. Having done so, and liking what he heard (huh...Tuominen's voice was exactly what he and Tenkula had envisioned for their new band!), Rata took the bull by the horns (or maybe it was an elk deer?) and decided to go ahead with the formation of the band. Tuominen was hauled in (actually, Ranta approached him with the ideas for the new band), along with ex-Embraze keyboardist Heidi Määttä, and together with Uusimaa and Markus the band started to develop the latter's ideas (focused around a singer just like Tuominen, whom was to write most of the lyrics for the new band) into actual songs. In the Summer of last year a demo was given birth.

In late Fall of last year the band started recording tracks at their own home studio in Oulu as well as at Mastervox. For the production of the vocals (and also the mixing of the album) the band called on long-time friend and renowned knob twiddler Hiili Hiilesmaa, whom had already worked with Poisonblack and also on Sentenced's last 3 albums. Working towards the actual release of the band makes a professional video for the track “Out Of The Wind”, which went to #3 in the Finish single charts upon release, nearly depleting the amount of copies that went out in the process. In June the band did its first full-set live appearance (there'd been a shorter show before, on February 19 – hey, that sounds too much like a coincidence, so my guess that was a show to commemorate Tenkula's death is probably not even far-fetched) in June, and soon after found Century Mediawilling to give the band's album a worldwide distribution.

Which brings us down to basics: what does this band sound like? Well, I've given the album several listening sessions yesterday evening (and again this morning, while writing the article), and the best description I can give is “Modern Melancholic Metal of varying intensities with loads of atmospherics and a soulful, clean singer”. Sounds rather cryptic, doesn't it? And right you are, because a description like that can go many ways. As to the “soulful” bit about the singer...maybe it can help if I tell you that the band brings a heavy version of Moody Blues' “Nights In White Satin”, and I'm sure this modern interpretation (far heavier guitars, you know) would even make the aforementioned band's members smile in approval, mainly thanks to Tuominen's warm vocal delivery. Oh well, eventually even that doesn't say a lot. Let me just put it this way: I'm saddened by the fact that there's still so many other albums to review, and that this review is coming towards its closure...because I'd gladly spend some more time with Vine. To get a better idea of what the band sounds like, why don't you check out the 5 songs posted at myspace.com/themaneatingtree...and by the way, if you feel the first one posted, “This Longitude Of Sleep”, is really the calmest song on the album!

95/100

Tony.