Manitou profile picture

Manitou

About Me

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 and still is to make 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 and so onthe first edition of album were sold out.
At late 2004 Rage Of Achilles felt down because of finance problems. So, we have to find a new label to work with. It was good chance to re-release the album with couple of bonus tracks through Firebox Records. Some line-up changes appeared out too. After the mini-tour 2004 with Paul Di´Anno, Manitou keyboardist Jukka Perälä was fired because of attitude problems. Manitou didn´t took no-one to cover him. So they continued without keys on gigs
Firebox Records Offered Manitou a deal, and at the moment second album is being recorded in Sound Supreme Studios. It will be released in march 2006 if everything goes as planned.



My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 12/12/2005
Band Website: http://www.manitouband.com
Band Members: Markku Pihlaja - Vocals

Markus Vanhala - Lead Guitar

Antti Laurén - Guitar

Ismo Laukkanen - Bass

Matti Suhonen - Drums

Influences: Iron Maiden, Annihilator, Ozzy Osbourne, Queensryche, Dream Theater and many more....
Sounds Like: Heavy
Record Label: Metal Heaven Records
Type of Label: Indie

My Blog

THE END OF THE MANITOU!

THE END OF THE MANITOUAfter a long struggle and a lot of effort to give some rescue breathing to this band without much results we've decided to call it a day and say goodbye to the MANITOU.We had som...
Posted by on Mon, 20 Jul 2009 12:07:00 GMT

Some new pictures added.

Some new (and old...) pictures added to the page pics section, and also the new gallery including some pictures from the recording sessions of the "No Signs Of The Wisdom" album.
Posted by on Sun, 15 Jul 2007 15:26:00 GMT

Preorder the new album / Ennakkotilaa uusi albumi!

Preorder "No Signs Of Wisdom" album!!You can now pre-order the new "No Signs Of Wisdom" album from Record store X mailorder. Record shop X supports Paypal and credit card payments, fast deliveries o...
Posted by on Thu, 28 Jun 2007 15:15:00 GMT

"No Signs Of Wisdom" album release date + new clips online!

"No Sings Of Wisdom" album release date have been set to 20th of July via Metal Heaven Records!We just added one full song ("Dread Of The Freaks") and one clip ("No Signs Of Wisdom") to our myspace ac...
Posted by on Thu, 28 Jun 2007 15:11:00 GMT

New Album Is Ready!

Finally the new album from us is ready. The New album "No Signs Of Wisdom" was mastered yesterday at Chartmakers by Svante Forsbäck.Album will be relased in July. Here are the titles from the album- I...
Posted by on Fri, 20 Apr 2007 23:05:00 GMT

New Album

Hell yeah, we're working with our third album now. We're heading to the studio at the end of february, and if all goes well we have it mastered and ready for print at the end of April! Heavy stuff com...
Posted by on Mon, 29 Jan 2007 08:18:00 GMT

Japan Release!

"Deadlock" album was just released also in Japan and some Asian territories by Spiritual Beast Records Japan. The Japan release date was 9th of August. The first Manitou review from Japan was 81/100 p...
Posted by on Mon, 14 Aug 2006 02:23:00 GMT

Songs Uploaded

Well Hell yeah,It�s been over 6 months for that "more updates coming soon".. So, here they are;4 songs added to our myspace profile for free download and some pics etc. updated!"Fools in control" an...
Posted by on Wed, 02 Aug 2006 12:42:00 GMT

European release / management deal / gig booking deal

Deadlock album was released today thru a license on Germany´s Metal Heaven Records. Metal Heaven will release the album in Sweden, Spain, Benelux, Germany, Austria and Switzerland.We also just got a l...
Posted by on Fri, 07 Jul 2006 12:58:00 GMT

Well well

It's been a while since this blog has been updated... well, nothing much happened in mean time. We've done plenty of gigs, got ourselves a Booking agency and Management. I think those are the biggest ...
Posted by on Mon, 29 May 2006 22:56:00 GMT