Photo credit: Mikko Parkkonen/Aarni Visuals
Finnish, atmospheric, progressive metal band, Alase, recently released their new single, “The Essence.” It is their first international co-operation, featuring vocals by Scottish artist, Matt Norriss. Watch the video for the new track in the article below.
Stream “The Essence” here https://push.fm/fl/alase-the-essence
Guitarist Janne Lunnas comments on “The Essence”:
“It’s been a while since our latest EP was released last year. Fortunately we were able to start working on new Alase music again this spring and “The Essence” was the first new song that became ready to get recorded. We were lucky to get my audio student friend Matt Norriss to perform the vocals on this song. We had an intense six-hour remote session, where Matt was recording his vocal tracks at his Piraxa studio in Scotland and I participated as a producer from my studio in Turenki. I have started my own audio production company Hidden River Audio this year so it was natural that I did the whole song production but also handled the mixing and mastering on “The Essence.” This new production process will simplify and speed up the work on Alase’s future releases as well.”
The Essence is a catchy and even surprisingly straightforward song. Lyrics tell a story about one’s long struggle with health issues and life around them. It’s a balancing act between hope and despair. The same theme is shown also on the cinematic music video made by Aarni Visuals that features martial arts performance. There are some musical similarities with modern metal bands like Architects and Tesseract so the song offers an emotional journey to the listener but also a good inspiration for some serious headbanging.
Alase is an atmospheric progressive metal/rock band from Finland. Their music is a melting pot of various genres, but the main focus is on the melody and atmosphere. There are a lot of influences outside metal music as well. Musically, Alase has similarities with bands like Katatonia, A Perfect Circle, The Ocean, Textures and Tesseract, just to name a few. The band’s second album A Matter of Time was released in April 2023. A four song EP Beyond Our Imagination was released in early 2024.
Current Line-up:
Janne Lunnas – Guitars
Ari Miettinen – Bass
Ville Aatsinki – Drums
Ninni Swan – Lyrics
Matt Norriss – Session vocals
Links:
http://www.alaseband.com
https://www.facebook.com/alaseband
https://www.instagram.com/alaseband
https://www.youtube.com/alaseband
https://alase.bandcamp.com
https://spoti.fi/2YYPrkj