Featuring former
Sentenced frontman
Ville Laihiala,
Poisonblack are a Finnish goth metal band that emerged to mainstream success in the mid-2000s. The band was founded in 2000 by
Laihiala (born June 13, 1973, in Oulu, Finland), who at the time was the lead vocalist of
Sentenced, a chart-topping Finnish metal band.
Laihiala had made his debut as the frontman of
Sentenced on the band's fourth album,
Down (1996). He sang on all five of the band's subsequent albums on Century Media Records, including the chart-toppers
Crimson (2000),
The Cold White Light (2002), and
The Funeral Album (2005), plus the swan song CD/DVD live album
Buried Alive (2006), a double-disc recording of the final
Sentenced concert, which took place on October 1, 2005. Toward the end of his tenure with
Sentenced,
Laihiala founded
Poisonblack as a side project in which he could focus on playing guitar. The band is comprised of Janne Markus (guitar), Antti Remes (bass), Tarmo Kanerva (drums), and Marco Sneck (keyboards), in addition to
Laihiala. He made his album debut with
Poisonblack in 2003 on
Escapexstacy, on which
Charon singer Juha-Pekka Leppäluoto is featured on lead vocals. The album was a minor hit at best, and
Laihiala resumed activity in
Sentenced after its release. However, after the breakup of
Sentenced in 2005,
Laihiala resurrected
Poisonblack and sang lead vocals himself this time. The resulting album,
Lust Stained Despair (2006), was a huge success, reaching number two on the Finnish albums chart and spawning the Top Five hit single "Rush." Third album
A Dead Heavy Day (2008) couldn't rival the blockbuster success of
Lust Stained Despair, but it was popular all the same, reaching the Top Ten and spawning the single "Bear the Cross." ~ Jason Birchmeier