From cloud nine to the bottom of the pit with all hope seeming too far to grasp, here's an introduction to the fourth studio album by Marianas Trench, Astoria. 

The album is very openly concept based. Josh Ramsay, the lead singer of Marianas Trench wrote each song to tie into the highs and lows of his life in the past two years. Starting with the height of Marianas Trench, suddenly becoming an arena band, taking part in the Grammy's and seeing his other work, "Call Me Maybe" become huge. Along with that, he'd become engaged which added to the excitement and promise for the future to come. But, the higher you get, the father and harder you fall. Josh's mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease which took a toll on his career and his love life when he had to cancel his wedding. With all the stress, Josh hit a wall. The amazing lyricist that he is, was stumped completely and he was unable to write songs for a long period of time, which only caused him that much more stress since he knew he needed to be working on this album. 

It was only shortly after all of that, that he was hospitalized for pancreatitis; he had gallstones. While in the hospital, even though he was in pain, he was relieved more than anything that he didn't have to be writing, he didn't have to work on the album. That hit Josh hard, since that is his job. A song writer, one that was so out of touch that he couldn't even work and he was feeling relieved about it. Fortunately, during his stay he had a surge of creativity. When he got out he was struggling to work fast enough to make sure he was able to capture each of his ideas. 

With the new found hope and excitement for the album to come, he turned his apartment into a vintage recording studio where the album was to be recorded completely. 

In his mind, the creation of the album was much like a cinematic adventure. Josh referred to it like a coming of age story. The album was inspired quite a bit by the 1985 classic, The Goonies. (Astoria is reference to the home town feature in the movie.) Which was also Josh's favorite coming of age movie. The title track Astoria was heavily inspired by movie where Josh looked to create a classic Marianas Trench medley style song but twisting it a bit so it would sound like it could have been released at the time The Goonies was also released. To achieve this, he only used instruments that were "vintage" or available in the 1980's (80's or older,) and only using vintage recording gear. And to really drive it home and make it something special, all of his friends involved in his life in the past two years while he was going through his stretch of hell, were invited over to play a part in the creation of the song. If they could play a bit of guitar or piano, they were given a small part to play. Even if they couldn't play an instrument, they could at least clap or do something. The song being a compilation of all of these people made it something like no other, something completely personal and a wonderful listening experience. 

Josh's old school inspiration didn't just stop at The Goonies, he also drew inspiration for The Beach Boys, Pet Sounds and Michael Jackson's Thriller. He wanted to look at what he felt were these people's best work and try and match the hype behind them. Staying humble, he knew he couldn't say he could match or outdo these classics, but he said he didn't know what he was capable  of, he just knew he wanted this to be a representation of his best work, until the next time of course. 

With the cinematic feel, Josh wanted to create transitional pieces, like film scores. The songs August Burns Red, Hospital Bells, Hollywood Renaissance, Never Say Die and Straight On Til Morning are each songs representing the idea of film scores. A concept new to him and something he was excited to tackle. And having worked with the Symphony Orchestra of Vancouver before, they were fortunate enough to get some people back to his apartment turned recording studio to record for not only the film score songs but a lot of the other songs on the album as well. 

The last song on the album, End of an Era was to be a hopeful climax to bring the entire album into perspective and tie each thing together, a climax to the entire journey. Josh wanted to use bit and pieces from the entire album to draw it all together musically and become that climax he was looking for with the set idea that he wanted to make it the "trademark" Marianas Trench style climax, mixed into a film score with himself still able to sing over it but have the same effect. 

The album came out October 23, 2015 with mixed genres of pop, pop punk and funk music. Given you have the chance, I highly recommend you take some time to listen to the full album. Astoria, Yesterday, This Means War and Dearly Departed are by far my top picks from the album all for different reasons, but all equally amazing, musically and lyrically. You won't regret it. 

For now though, I hope you enjoy the song below, One Love, the first released song and music video from the album.

Thank you for reading!

 

Astoria  ||  Burning Up  ||  Yesterday  ||  One Love  ||  August Burns Red  || This Means War  ||  Hospital Bells  ||  Dearly Departed  ||  Hollywood Renaissance  ||  Shut Up and Kiss Me  ||  Who Do You Love  ||  Never Say Die  ||  Wildfire  ||  While We're Young  ||  Forget Me Not  ||  And Straight On Til Morning  ||  End of an Era