Biography
The roots of Embreach lie within its predecessor Blindfold, which was founded in 1999 by Jari Halonen (guitar), Sami Honkonen (vocals) and Toni Enqvist (guitar). Blindfold released two demos, “Through these eyes” in 2000 and “Vanity of Vanities” in 2001.
With a new lineup of Juho Karenko (bass), Sami Honkonen (vocals) and Toni Enqvist (guitar), Jarno Vanhanen (drums) Jari Aarniala (guitar) the band was reincarnated with a new name, Embreach and released their first demo “End of the Line” in 2004, which was recorded and mixed by Toni Näykki, guitarist from such bands as Soulgrind, Twilight Ophera and lately Million Dollar Beggars.
The next huge plunge was the promo “Her Grace”, recorded at D-Studio in 2006. It was well received and got good reviews in metal magazines and web sites and proved that the band really had potential. The style of Embreach had formed to be melodic death metal with a progressive touch. “Her Grace” has three songs but still runs over 21 minutes.
Juho Karenko took a job as a peace keeper in Kosovo and he was replaced by Jaakko Mäkilä. Also very shortly after the release Vanhanen had to leave the band because of his duties with his other band, Tacere. Embreach started looking for a new drummer, but replacing Vanhanen turned out to be quite a challenge.
In the beginning of 2008 Embreach had several great songs ready, but no drummer to play them. The auditions were ceased and Vanhanen was asked to play the songs in the studio. Embreach reinforced with Vanhanen recorded four of the best new songs in the turn of June and July at Sound Supreme Studios in Hämeenlinna with Janne Saksa, a sound engineer well-known for his work with, for example, Mokoma, Turisas and Amoral.
On 11th of August 2008 the EP bearing the name “Deafening Silence” was released. In the aftermath of the release, Embreach won Radio Rock’s “15 minutes of fame”-competition with the track “Shadow’s Song”. The song was selected from over 300 competitors with a public voting and jury decision.
The prize was to play as the opening act on the Unholy Alliance tour with Slayer (USA), Mastodon (USA), Amon Amarth (SWE) and Trivium (USA) in Helsinki and Tampere Ice Halls in November 2008. Embreach received a lot of media attention and the biggest Finnish newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat, interviewed them.
In January 2009 Noise.fi, one of the biggest music web sites in Finland, reviewed “Deafening Silence” with a full score of 5 out of 5 and elected Embreach as the band of the month.
Vanhanen had been playing with Embreach since he left, simply not as an official member. Drummer auditions produced a few great drummers, but none of them equalled Vanhanen. Lately Vanhanen had had enough time to devote to the band and thus he re-joined Embreach.
In February 2009 Embreach warmed up for Five Finger Death Punch (USA) in Nosturi, Helsinki. Since then Embreach has been playing gigs all around Finland. Embreach is also writing new material and looking for a record company to work with in releasing their debut album.
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