Grave Pleasures celebrated the release of their fourth studio album Plagueboys at Yo-Talo in Tampere on April 27, 2023.
Modem, a dystopian synth-pop duo donned with a pile of synth filled boxes warmed up the stage. They seemed to be a bit mysterious and underground as I had trouble finding much info about them. Although their style and sound seemed to be on the outer edge of relative to Grave Pleasures, the connection was understandable. They somehow flawlessly blended eccentricity and low keyness, drenaline driven yet chill indie aesthetic, shiny latex, fast glasses eccentric dancing vs. knitted sweaters, humble newsboy hats and groovy stoicism. The vocals and more melancholic melodies shot a streak of Twin Peaks vibes through the whole set. Specially the parts when the vocalist played the Sax, and it made you question whether it was insanity or brilliance.
Although it was a Thursday night and probably not as big of a crowd a there could (should) have been, Grave Pleasures set the stage ablaze from start to finish. At times, every (living) body in the room was swaying to the groove of dystopian doomy post punk. Mat’s humble and low key speeches between songs drove in the lovely paradox of up beat dystopian music. Questioning why they wrote songs about such dark subjects such as “Doomsday Rainbows” in the past, and how they’ve move on to getting “High on Annihilation”. Sarcastically mentioning all the things going wrong in the world that they weren’t supposed to talk about , although much of their music coincidentally directly breached those subjects. Dancing with a similar low key eccentricness Modem had. The only other time I had seen the band was at the packed indoor stage at Tuska in 2018, so the half full intimacy of Yo-Talo was quite a different vibe and although the show as brilliant and will probably make my top gigs list, it left an unsatiated feeling, needing more. I really REALLY hope they do more gigs this year!
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