Maanta Raay – Self Titled
Maanta Raay is a hard rock/ heavy psych trio from Nashville, Tennessee. Consisting of Mason Hadley on bass, Carlos Ortiz-Martinez on drums, and Chet Weise on guitar and vocals, they released their Self Titled debut on July18th 2025. Containing eight tracks at twenty five minutes long, the recording was released on No Sabes.
“The Night Rider” starts things off with a heavy psychedelic induced stoner rocking fuzz machine. The hard driving rhythms are decorated with scores of powerful leads and good sounding vocals. The music has a powerful groove throughout its seven minute run time and integrates scorching guitar leads with the slamming riffs. “Lost Satellite” is a twenty five second sample that acts as an introduction for the “Maanta Raay Theme”. The spacy vocals jive with the cosmic sounds and fuzzy tones. I hear some old Nebula and Hawkwind influences in their music and the band are keen on letting the sounds speak to the listener. The captivating tones and the use of keyboard/synth on these songs draws you right in.
“Ohm Revver” is the sound of a muscle car revving up and taking off, leading us right into “Peace Cruiser”. The Sabbath groove and charm are felt on this track with the heavy riffing and atmospheric textures that are spread throughout the song. “Ancient Future” is an intro to “UFORCHID”, which has a heavy and trance like flow to it. The music pans back and forth between the left and right speakers, which makes it idea to experience with headphones. Swirls of cosmic flourishing and spoken samples are encapsulated within the song. The outro on the recording is called “Cosmic Microwave Background “, which is a quick twelve seconds of ambience. Overall, I really dig this album and my only complaint is that it’s too short. Totaling less than thirty minutes, this would be considered an EP. There are only four actual songs present and four quick intros and/or samples between each. Maanta Raay sounds great nonetheless and I look forward to hearing more from this band in the future.
https://maantaraay.bandcamp.com
