#mat mcnerney

Changeling by Hexvessel featuring Neige - Directed and produced by: Vesa Ranta & Aapo Lahtela

Doomsday rainbows the colour of death liberation

Grave Pleasures live at Garagefest, Lutakko, January 2018, photos by Antti Makkonen

Grave Pleasures

Formed by members of Beastmilk after that band’s breakup, and with ex-The Oath guitarist Linnea Olsson adding a dose of doom, Grave Pleasures’ Dreamcrash furthered the “apocalyptic post-punk” of Beastmilk’s Climax and expanded on that record’s surprising fusion of punk, metal and goth.  “Taste the Void” was one of the faster tunes on Dreamcrash, but it retained the album’s unique sound and feel, and established the group as one of the most interesting bands in the underground today.  Volbeat would be an easy comparison, but an inaccurate one: although Mat McNerney’s vocals were rooted in black metal, his singing bore a heavy goth influence and sounded more ominous.  Furthermore, the band as a whole was compact and lean in its attack, even as they were invoking several different genres and scenes all at once.  Some might not know what to make of “Taste the Void”, and some might not think of it as metal at all, but this offered another example of the breadth of the genre’s reach.