Masquerage

Biography

Masquerage was formed back in 1998 by the guitarist/vocalist Kimmo Perämäki (ex-Celesty, Athmosfear) and drummer Marko Ylä-Häkkinen. Keyboard player Mika Maunus joined in ’99 and in the same year it was time to record the first demotape. Back then the band was called Unchained.

In the year 2000 bassplayer Mikael Kontolampi joined the line-up and the name was changed to Masquerage. In the next four years this line-up recorded four demos, performed live inside the borders of Finland and worked hard with their music and sound. In the summer of 2004 guitarist Jukka Viitasaari (Confusion) completed the current lineup and the Masquerage that we know today was ready to get serious.

Masquerages style has been influenced by such bands as Iron Maiden, Helloween, Pretty Maids … and many others too … but as every member of the band brings in his own personality and style, Masquerage doesn’t have to sound anything but itself. The sound consists of two electric guitars, Markos powerfull drumming, Mika´s keyboards as a spice or a flavour and most of all - Kimmo´s highly recognizable voice. Masquerage has been pushed in many different genres of heavy music. For someone it is power metal and to another too pop to listen to. Maybe we can call it heavy-pop or soft-heavy-metal or as the singer Kimmo Perämäki himself has defined: the music he makes is hard-rock-metal. All in all the point is that this music is powerfull and hard, but not too serious.

The first full lenght album by Masquerage was recorded through out the year 2005. Supervised by VolantoBros Masquerage laid down 12 tracks of their cheerful heavy rock music. The album was named as "Work-Holic-Fool" and it combined the feelings of years behind with the things the years have made to the band to the year of 2005. It can be said that the "Work-Holic-Fool" is a kind of mixture of old and new, putting the years together so far.

After the "Work-Holic-Fool" the band started to perform more live performances than ever before and the bands fan-numbers grew slowly but surely. About a year after the "Work-Holic-Fool" the band started to plan and work with the second album with the lead by Kimmo Perämäki.

The second full lenght album by Masquerage was recorded during winter 2007 & 2008. It consists of 9 songs of true Masquerage. The album was named as "Moonlight Time" and was published at May 2008. "Moonlight Time" is still on its way to reach the people world-wide.

During these days Masquerage is working with live performances and getting the people in Finland and all around the world rid of their misery of not yet having the music of Masquerage on their personal playlists...

Top of page