Grave Pleasures

Hailing from Helsinki, the Finnish post-punk collective Grave Pleasures fuses apocalyptic punk, metal, pop, and goth rock into macabre yet danceable hooks, summoning echoes of Fields of the Nephilim, H.I.M., the Cure, and Bauhaus. Since forming in 2010, the group has spent more than twenty years sharpening its shadowy craft across the albums Dreamcrash (2015), Motherblood (2017), and Plagueboys (2023).

The outfit took shape after vocalist Mat McNerney and bass player Valtteri Arino watched their prior band, Beastmilk, dissolve; that earlier project had already issued an EP and a widely praised full-length. Drawing from David Bowie, Magazine, and Wire, the five-piece—completed by Juho Vanhanen, Aleksi Kiiskilä, and Rainer Tuomikanto—delivered its first long-player, Dreamcrash, through Columbia and Metal Blade in 2015. A subsequent contract with Century Media yielded the death-rock revelry Motherblood two years later. Captured at the 2018 Roadburn Festival in Tilburg, Netherlands, the live document Doomsday Roadburn appeared in 2019. Grave Pleasures kept dissolving boundaries between the dancefloor and the mortuary with the frosty, groove-driven Plagueboys in 2023.