All copies of the vinyl come in luxurious triple gatefold covers and feature a booklet and a poster.
Hot
on the heels of archival releases from bands such as Abhorrence, Xysma
and Mordicus, Svart Records is delving deeper into the Finnish death
metal scene of yesteryear with the complete works of Festerday. The
double CD / triple LP package consists of all Festerday studio material,
live and rehearsal rarities, plus new renditions of nine old songs,
which the band have re-recorded, renamed and re-composed.
Festerday
was formed in Pietarsaari (Jakestown), Finland, approximately 1989 when
four 13–14-year-old guys (Timo Kontio, Kena Strömsholm, Miikka Timonen
and Jallu Honkaniemi) met at the local youth center and realized that
they all shared the same interests within the underground scene. The
members had already been involved in some band activities before they
got together but the musical outcome of those bands did not exactly turn
out as planned.
The underground scene offered something out
of the ordinary to the youngsters. Tape trading and fanzines drove them
deeper into the scene, and after a couple of months the four guys were
jamming in the local youth center's facilities doing covers of punk,
thrash and death metal songs.
At that point the band had no
name, but the name Mortuary played its role for a short time before
changing it to Festerday. The name was taken from a Carcass song and
that pretty much underlined the direction where the band was going.
Having
only one guitarist in the band had its downsides, and therefore Teemu
Saari was asked to join the ranks. Teemu and Timo had back in the days
been "riffing up" some tunes together, so getting Teemu onboard seemed
like an obvious decision.
The first stable line-up of the
group consisted of Timo on guitar, Teemu on guitar, Kena on vocals,
Miikka on drums and Jallu on bass, and lasted from 1989 to 1991. During
that period the members also recorded demos and played gigs under
different monickers: Headache, Jungle Yuppies, Extreme Disco Terror,
Kaasukammio. After playing some local gigs with Festerday, Jallu and
Miikka left the band in 1991 to form their own punk/HC band, Ödeema.
Finding
new suitable candidates for Festerday seemed at that point impossible.
Luckily the band met the guys from Carnifex and hooked-up with the
drummer Pentele, who eventually turned out to be more than just a
helping hand. After only a few rehearsals, and still without a bass
player, the band decided to record the first demo. The band was not
pleased with the outcome and decided not to release the demo. Pentele
had to focus on Carnifex, but recommended Teemu Kilponen from the
death/thrash band Masacre. Kilponen on the other hand knew a guy with
magic fingers and introduced Jakke Mäki (RIP) to the band.
Now,
with Kilponen on drums and Jakke on bass, the second stable line-up was
set in 1992 and the demo II was recorded as a split release with
Carnifex.
As the line-up finally seemed stable, the band was
still missing an official logo. The right guy for the job was the French
artist, Christophe Moyen, who already had a name in the underground
scene and was well-known for his artwork. Moyen came up with the first
official logo, the "Christ Rotting on the Cross" demo cover and a couple
of flyers.
However, the split was never officially released,
but got some attention in fanzines throughout the underground via tape
trading and small radio shows.
The third demo was recorded the
same year, but just like the previous demos, it was never officially
released. The demos were simply named I, II and III. Labels like Wild
Rags, Peaceville, Drowned among others showed interest in the band, but
somehow the ink just did not stick to the paper.
After the
third demo Festerday started to stretch the musical limits a bit further
and a 25 minute long song with lyrics in four languages was rehearsed,
but never studio recorded. Shortly after the band entered a period of
hiatus from the end of 1993 onwards and soon after the members went
separate ways to form new bands. The members were active in a bunch of
different bands between 1994–2013 before they decided to complete the
project that once was left undone – and to pay homage to the former
bassist, Jarkko, who suddenly committed suicide after finalizing the
album with Painflow in 1999.
In 2014 the band started to
rehearse the 25 year old songs. At this point Antti Räisälä from Total
Vomit Experience joined in on bass as a full member and plans for an
album started to take form. Later the same year the Finnish label, Svart
records, showed interest in the band, and this time the ink did dry on
paper.