Out of the darkness: Psychework light the spark of hope.
PRESS/SAM JÄMSEN
If anything has come to define Finnish prog metallers Psychework, then it has to be the undercurrent of optimism that runs through their music. Across three albums – The Dragon’s Year (2016), Karelian Hills (2018) and 2023’s Spark Of Hope – the sextet of singer Antony Parviainen, guitarists J-V Hintikka and Juha Takanen, Otto Närhi (keyboards), Konsta Vehkala (drums) and bassist Ville Koskinen have constantly come up victorious despite circumstances having the potential to dictate a very different outcome.
Hailing from the south-central city of Jyväskylä, Psychework formed following the split of Parviainen and Hintikka’s former band, Machine Man.
“I got really sick with leukemia,” says Parviainen, “and when I was in hospital, I got the idea for the new band. I called J-V and asked him what he thought about making melodic and symphonic kind of music, and he was in immediately. The whole thing started there. I wrote most of the lyrics for the first album in hospital.”
“I want to find a really strong story and put drama in our music.”