- 18. OCTOBER FOR GERMANY. PLEASE GET IN TOUCH!

Masquerade began in late 2012, founded by vocalist Suzi Sabotage and then-bassist Sebastian Holm. Preceding the formation Suzi had a hardcore punk background, fronting an all-female group and Sebastian had been doing vocals in a goth band Loistava Polku.

Before the end of 2012, Masquerade was quite a long time a more vague post-punk project with no specific name, riddled with temporary musicians who changed frequently. The first shows were set up under these circumstances, which included playing at Finland's most long-running goth festival, Lumous, the next summer which the band was accepted in already on basis of a seedy rehearsal room recording of "Play Dead" (first song Masquerade ever wrote), featuring a drum machine.

The first solid line-up consisted of Markus in drums and Joel in guitar in the beginning of 2013, which both were part of creating Masquerade's distinct sound. The band started to evolve as a whole followed by such early songs as "Needle Through a Bug", "Cuts", "All Things Hurt" and "Predatory Man". Group soon gathered interest in Finland and even abroad despite having no recorded music or video, ending up on national television in August and conjuring up new shows. Helsinki's most significant punk venue Lepakkomies held their first official gig, and the event was sold out.

Their first release was a promotional demo on internet consisting of three songs. They were praised and widespread over all expectations and brought Masquerade a lot of additional attention, i.e. being listed in Cvlt Nation's six best releases of 2013. The first music video was one hundred percent self-made clip for "Needle Through a Bug", in which they already had a new bassist. Early in 2014 they got a proposal from Fight Records for a maxi-EP, which they went to record to a studio in Kouvola, Finland for three feverish days in February. After that Masquerade was set for March tour in their home country, England and Sweden.

A music video for "All Things Hurt", second song on the upcoming record, was released in spring. The lineup changed rapidly with departure of Markus and Joel and substitutes were taken at their place. Late May 2014 they played one and only gig with this setup in Prague, and on the way to Leipzig, Germany the then version of the group split with scandalous consequences. The performance was not made as only Suzi was present in the city, but according to the singer that was just "good riddance", although unfortunate for the unplayed show. It didn't take as long as a week to recruit new members for the existing gigs and well-paved future in general, who were Samuel (guitar), Andy Taylor (bass) and Jesper (drums). In less than a month this lineup rehearsed a set for two gigs in early July, and even conjured up a new song called "With Razorblades". That month also a new song "Cry Like Birds" was published to promote the record.

October 2014 held finally the day when the maxi-EP "Blood is the New Black" was released, and also got a distributor in the USA, Mass Media Records. That was followed by tours in France and England which were well received. In January 2015 our current bassist Jacques Saph replaced Andy, and the band got a contract from Crysella Records.