Bleakwail history

Bleakwail was founded in spring 2000 by John and Jacob. Jeremiah and Samuel were recruited almost immediately to stringed instruments, and thus "our imaginary band" (the original name) was established.

Soon after the forming, John had to cut his hair off and enter military service for a year. Meanwhile, Jeremiah, Samuel and Jacob had a meeting at which they decided the music style (gothic black metal or something like that, it was originally John's idea to play black-ish metal) and the first name for the band. It was "Schattenjäger", originating from the computer game "Gabriel Knight". Samuel wrote the first song, "Fleeting shadow" which they trained at their local Pentecostal church with a drum machine.

After a slow start, a few more songs were written, of which at least two were discarded as too crappy songs. Among the surviving ones were "A bleak wail" and "Liberation from death".

The band's name was a big question: they weren't too happy with "Schattenjäger", and invented a new name or a few in almost every rehearsal. Among the more sensible choices were "Thornclad" (there was a secular swedish death metal band with the same name), "Heirloom" (sounded like a power metal band's name, ecch) and "Mediator" (I bet there is or was a new media company with similar name). Finally they settled with "Bleakwail".

Eventually Bleakwail entered Studio Hemma to record their first recording, the "Dome" (since it was not a demo, but rather a recording for only internal use and perhaps to a few selected friends). It contained two songs: "Fleeting shadow" and "Metal symphony, part II", the latter one being actually a Jeremiah's dark ambient sideproject's fruit.

Because of the drum machine and lousy guitar sounds "Fleeting shadow" didn't satisfy the band very much, but their friend received it with almost overwhelming enthusiasm.

The first gig was booked over a year after founding of the band, a while before John returned from the army: Halloween metal party 2001. They had less than four months to practise the songs with John and still lacked a second guitarist. Sir Arthur had an experimental visit as a second guitarist, but it didn't work out very well.

In their grieve they decided to ask the infamous Kreivi Peevelinsilpoja to do the second guitar, to which he agreed almost suspiciously gladly.

The gig was played, containing five songs: "Liberation from death", "Songs of Sorrow", "A bleak wail", "Fleeting shadow" and "Passionate peace".

Thus began the career of Bleakwail. Lately the band has practised new songs for the recording of the forthcoming demo, scheduled to be released in early 2002.

Early 2002 was really optimistic schedule - as you can see, Songs was released 05 July 2002. Nevertheless, we're quite pleased with it and encourage you to listen to sound samples and see if it's worth buying.