Marianas Trench

Marianas Trench routinely up their game substantially with each successive album, but their sixth full-length release, Haven, is more epic and far-reaching, musically and thematically, than anything they’ve done before.

On Haven, Josh Ramsay and the band take on ‘The Hero’s Journey’ – a mainstay for generations in describing the commonalities between virtually every quest narrative – as laid out in a series of plot points in Joseph Campbell’s, ‘The Hero With A Thousand Faces.’ That sets the hook for the band’s most ambitious, yet universally relatable, record yet – complete with huge orchestral and vocal arrangements, and, of course, crushingly big rock and roll elements aplenty. “Pulling from The Hero’s Journey framework, I’m talking about a lot of big life themes, with the idea of a haven in the storm as a destination,” Ramsay says, “and making Haven was like passing through a giant storm, so there’s a lot of elemental imagery.”

Each of the thirteen songs represents a plot point, taking listeners out of their ordinary world on the album opener, ‘A Normal Life,’ tossing them ‘Into The Storm’ and, ultimately, on the album’s grand finale and title track, ‘Haven’ (arguably the most challenging track Ramsay’s ever written), full circle – only wiser, more certain, and certainly irrevocably changed.