Grave Pleasures

"Hacking out this feverish, frantic and very uninhibited music exposes and lays raw some intense emotions. As we get deeper and closer to capturing the spirit of what we set out for this band to be, we are touching some vital nerves. It's getting under the skin, under the flesh." Mat McNerney, vocals With the ink still drying on a deal with Sony Epic, a line-up looking like an underground dream team, and an album set to be recorded with award- winning producer Tom Dalgety (Royal Blood, Killing Joke) in May - 2015 is the year where dreams come crashing down, only to come true better than anyone dared to hope for... Self-styled apocalyptic post punks Beastmilk, now called Grave Pleasures, were one of the most talked-about bands in recent times. Their "painful war-cry of the eternally doomed," as one journalist described it, resonated with fans of all music genres. Formed in Helsinki in 2010, their 2013 debut album "Climax" received rave reviews across the board. Metalheads, indie kids and gothic punks were all dancing to the funeral drum as the Finnish band spearheaded a new wave of rock music. 2015 marked the end of an era - and the beginning of a new - as guitarist Johan "Goatspeed" Snell left early in the year. The group changed its name to Grave Pleasures, and embarked on a musical journey sure to surpass any previous efforts. Original members Mat "Kvohst" McNerney on vocals and bassist Valtteri Arino, along with Swedish guitarist and songwriter Linnéa Olsson (formerly of The Oath), set out to create their favourite band; A pack of fearless players, with a non-regulated sense of creativity and energy. Open-minded punks, skilled and hungry to take this death rock party to the next level. They found what they were looking for in session guitarist Juho Vanhanen - a musician by profession with a tasteful sense of haunting melodies and eerie sounds. His screaming Telecaster is one of the trademarks of the much respected psychedelic black metal outfit Oranssi Pazuzu. And they found it in Uno Bruniusson - arguably one of the best rock drummers of his generation. Having co-founded and played in Sweden's In Solitude for the entire 13 years of its existence, Uno helped not only revive heavy metal, but ultimately re-shape it into something far more urgent and current. His drumming was a constant cause of jaw-dropping admiration during the 2014 autumn tour that In Solitude and Beastmilk did together. The chemistry turned out to be undeniable. "Every single one of the people I play music with in Grave Pleasures has blown me away either on record or on stage," enthuses Mat McNerney. "I would have killed to be in a band with any of those guys, so for me it's a total honour and thrill to play with them now. I feel that with them we'll get the best out of the songs but we're also on a mission that lives on outside and after us. That's when you know you're performing real true magic. That electric feeling has to be there." Together, they've written what will be the first album under the name Grave Pleasures - a complex and feverish set of modern rock songs, complete with immediate pop sensibility, a melancholic undercurrent, and an irreverent ferociousness that is alone in its kind in contemporary rock. The material is multi-layered, with a twin guitar team weaving sonic webs that are both dreamy and sinister. Or as Juho described his fellow guitar player's riff style: "Beautiful and melodic, but with spiders crawling underneath". Bassist Valtteri Arino is truly coming into his own right on this release, further developing his groove together with Uno - ultimately making it a truly danceable, rhythmic pleasure - in all its bleak, urban tribalism.