Posthouse Tuomi is the brainchild of Tuomas Pitkänen and Mika Hamed. They have established quite a catalog of well produced, instrumental originals written for commercials, video games, and trailers in mind. You may hear some things you recognize, as they have had success in licensing deals for their soundtracks, most notably with Red Bull (their Publishing affiliate) and the video game “Shroud of the Avatar.” Overall, Posthouse Tuomi has accumulated millions of views in different medias around the world.
Their Spotify catalog covers a span of time that goes back as far as 2017 with their first single “Reconnect,” two full length albums released in 2018, a run of singles in 2020, and one release in 2021, a single, called “Blinded Eyes” featuring Joe Marks (also known by his artist name: My Position). “Blinded Eyes,” a significant release in terms of overall sound, as it is indicative of a more metal/metalcore direction the project has been going lately. This would also be the second time Marks would lend vocal collaboration to the project he has described as a “symphonic metal band,” but certainly not the last, as his vocals are again featured in Posthouse Tuomi’s latest single, “Fear,” released a couple weeks ago, on January 14th.
“Fear” seems to me like a manifestation from a lot of their more recent work available for license through the “Sounds of Red Bull” catalog and as mentioned before with Marks. This time around, Marks was joined in vocal arrangement by Shayley Bourget of Dayshell (and formerly in Of Mice and Men).
My first impressions upon hearing it was that it actually sounded more like Post-hardcore to me. I realize there was a lot of metal/metalcore influence and reference thrown around leading up to this, but the opening guitar riff and intro struck me like a big sounding, dramatic, epic Emo song of the first decade of the 2000s. Moves me in the same way Underoath does, as it has tastefully placed screams in the right places to emphasize certain parts of the song, but does not interfere at all with how melodic the entire piece is. A more typical metalcore sound you would probably expect does happen spatially in the middle of the song at about 2:40, but only for a brief flash. Another comparison I would make, based on my ear, would be that it sounded like a much heavier 10 Years.
Production is slick, as you would expect, Posthouse Tuomi has a well established history of producing cinematic and larger than life productions for licensing purposes. What makes this single an outlier, like the last one with Marks, are very well produced vocal lines and deep lyrical content. To quote some of my favorite lyrics, which give the listener a figurative fight or flight ultimatum:
“You feel it all
When it finds a way inside
and just rips all your life away
Woah
Now you’ve got to choose to die
or push back with all that you gave”
“Fear’s a weight to destroy and bury you
rips away from the ones who’ll carry you
Set ablaze to the things that burden you
Cross the line, and begin to carry through”
You can listen and learn more about Posthouse Tuomi here:
Also find this song and many other great tunes on this Spotify Playlist curated by our good friends at Hard n Heavy Playlists:
Audio Mirage Studios 