In Finland’s darkest forests, where melancholy weaves through the trees like mist, some bands are born from silence. Others, like The Man-Eating Tree, are reborn by it.

After nearly a decade of dormancy, the atmospheric metal collective returns with “Seer”, a brooding track that claws its way to the surface with slow-burning fury and unsettling grace. With a revamped lineup and a new full-length album, Night Verses, on the horizon (out April 11 via Noble Demon) the band steps forward into a new era. Less a comeback and more an evolution.

To mark this resurrection, I caught up with Manne (the newest voice among these seasoned trees) to dig into the song, the psyche, and what it means to reemerge from the underworld of silence.

“Seer could be you or me or anyone else,” Manne begins when I ask what kind of personality this shadowy figure might have. “A person who believes they see the future, and the visions they see are always bad. Or even if they’re good, they believe they’ll turn bad soon. So I guess Seer is a super pessimistic person, in a way.”

I ask about the weight of returning after years away, the pressure of legacy. “I hope this feels more like a liberating experience than a comeback that needs to be worried about,” he says thoughtfully. “I’m speaking on behalf of the original members here—I’m a newcomer in this current lineup, so we’ll see what the feedback will be in the end.”

All the songs were written before Manne joined, so the changes in the creative process are subtle. “Hard for me to say if there’s any new energy in them now, hopefully so,” he says. “Of course, there were small changes in the song arrangements here and there, but I still think nothing major.”

Janne (guitar, vocals) once said, “Seers live in all of us.” So I ask what each band member’s personal Seer might say. Manne chuckles. “I’ll answer on behalf of Janne: I think his Seer might whisper something like: ‘Okay, let’s see where this path shall lead us.’” It’s poetic. Stoic. And deeply Finnish.

When I ask which song from Night Verses would save them if they were lost in a mystical forest, Manne doesn’t hesitate. “That would be ‘These Traces’, of course.”

Finally, I ask how it feels to return to the stage after so long. “Well, it’s been so long since my last performance with a band like this,” Manne says candidly. “I have no idea how it might feel, or what to expect.” Still, the hope is clear: “We all hope the shows go great—that people like what they see and hear, and that The Man-Eating Tree will have lots of new fans in the future.”

“Seer” may be a song of dread, but The Man-Eating Tree stand at the beginning of something. Not a return. A rebirth. With Night Verses just came out, this is the moment they walk out of the fog and into the clearing.

Their roots remain deep in Finnish soil, but the forest ahead is still unwritten.

Photo: Jani Mahkonen