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 on…the 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… Now Manitou is looking for a label to release the second album. Some new material has taken place at the gigs and have had great reactions from the audience already. If there´s any interests about releasing forthcoming Manitou

In mid June 2005 the band signed a two album deal with Firebox Records.

OFFICIAL BIOGRAPHY (2005)