Janne Huusari - Drums      Niko Huusari - Guitar      Ilkka Valkonen - Vocals      Joni Järvenmäki - Bass      Mikko Huusari - Guitar

A short biography

Soulwound is a metal band operating in Kouvola, southeast Finland. The band's sound is an amalgam of both old school and contemporary influences, mixing the vigor and fervor of old school thrash with the crushing rhythmic intensity of more modern styles of metal. All this is complemented by harsh, aggressive vocals and bleak, socially conscious and venomous lyrics. If you were to throw, say, Sepultura, Testament and Fear Factory in a blender, the resulting paste would be somewhat close to the base on which the band builds its own sound. Call it contemporary thrash or just fucking metal, doesn't matter.

The band's existence is the direct result of Niko and Janne Huusari taking up their respective instruments in the early to mid 90s. They soon attended a band school and found another guitarist and a bassist to play with, forming their first full-fledged band, minus a vocalist. The boys began developing their skills by rehearsing a selection of easy to play classic songs by bands like Nirvana, Black Sabbath and Metallica. The lineup changed several times throughout the years, as did the selection of covers. In late 2005, the guys began recording their first demo, to be titled The Severance, in their basement rehearsal room. Struggling to come up with a name for the band, they eventually settled on Soulwound after a song by Fear Factory. The song in question is not a particularly good one, but the name appeared catchy enough. It is not devoid of meaning, though, as the human soul is fragile and wounds inflicted on it often result in horrifying consequences ranging from suicide to mass murder. The demo was released in January 2006, after which the band soon played its first live shows.

In late 2006, the band started working on its second demo, titled Wasteland and released in January 2007. Later they wrote and rehearsed songs for yet another demo, called Dystopia and released in April 2008. In 2010, the band decided to re-record a bunch of songs from the first two demos, and this recording, left untitled, was released in 2011.

In 2011, the band was playing live shows and writing songs for an upcoming full-length album, the recording of which was scheduled to begin in early 2012. However, everything was put on hold in December when the group's vocalist informed the band that he had decided to quit. After spending a few months looking for a new vocalist, the band contacted Arto Jauho, who turned out to be willing to join. This lineup played its first live show in June 2012. After getting some more live shows under their belt and the new vocalist properly acquainted with the song material, the band finally entered the studio in January 2013. The first fill-length album, entitled Seeing Red, was recorded at the Madmix studio in Kouvola. The album, clocking in at 40 minutes and containing 8 songs of highly aggressive metal, was released on December 5th, 2013 through Kanki Rekords.

The year 2014 turned out to be yet another time for a major change, as the band had to recruit a new guitarist. The Huusari brothers approached their younger brother Mikko, who agreed to join, resulting in all three brothers now playing in the same band. The band also embarked on its first European tour in September.

After writing and preparing material in 2015, the band entered the studio again in early 2016 to record its second album entitled No Peace. The album was released globally via Inverse Records in October 2016 and received critical acclaim from quite a few reviewers.

In the spring of 2019, while the band was preparing material for their third album, vocalist Arto Jauho decided to leave due to personal circumstances. However, the search for a new vocalist turned out to be surprisingly short, as Arto's predecessor Ilkka Valkonen expressed his desire to step up to the plate again. It only took one rehearsal with Ilkka to decide that the search was over. The third album, entitled The Suffering, was recorded between summer 2019 and early 2020. The album was originally supposed to be released in May 2020, but the coronavirus pandemic put everything on hold. Eventually, the album was scheduled to be released on September 11 2000.