Grave Pleasures

A Finnish post-punk outfit based out of Tampere and Helsinki, Grave Pleasures deliver both hooks and horror via a macabre and danceable mix of apocalyptic punk, metal, pop, and goth-rock that invokes names like Fields Of The Nephilim, HIM, The Cure, and Bauhaus. Formed in 2015, after the dissolution of singer Mat McNerney and bassist Valtteri Arino’s short-lived sensation Beastmilk, Grave Pleasures have defiantly expanded on what has been described as their “war-cry for the eternally doomed,” with each album seeing their song-craft reach new heights. Their raw atomic punk of their major label debut album Dreamcrash (2015) was revamped and contorted into the uplifting nihilism of distinctly more frenetic sophomore smash-hit album Motherblood (2017), ultimately amped up and finessed into the heady Plagueboys (2023), their most mature yet dangerous album to date. With music written by McNerney (Hexvessel, Carpenter Brut, Me & That Man) and guitarists Juho Vanhanen (Oranssi Pazuzu) and Aleksi Kiiskilä, and then arranged together with Arino and drummer Rainer Tuomikanto, Plagueboys sees the lineup, who frantically hacked out Motherblood together, come of age. With the electrifying contradiction of light and darkness, the duality of the funereal Grave and euphoric Pleasure in their moniker, their music is an exhilarating, tear-filled, grinning dance of death.