Finland's EMBRAZE, featuring CHARON guitarist Lauri Tuohimaa, have announced that their final show will take place May 1st at Club Teatria on Friday, May 1st.

A message from the band reads:

"Hanging up the Instruments...

Embraze has come to the end of the road; we have decided to call it quits. The decision was made together as a band, and we want to throw one more gig and finish the story of Embraze with style.

Lots of water has streamed in River Kiiminkijoki in the past 15 years, when children have become so-called grown-ups. We've experienced moments of joy and success just as well as some setbacks, line-up changes and battles with record labels. Despite the energy-consuming setbacks, however, we have prevailed and made a long career.

One of the best recording experiences we had was recording Katharsis in the Finnish Lapland when we packed our gear in a trailer and recorded the album at Raanujärvi with Aki Karppinen and Kake Vähäkuopus. We lived and worked in a 300m² mansion, brought from the 19th century Soviet Union. The doors at the mansion locked themselves on their own from the inside and all kinds of fun and exciting things were going on in the house. It was great experiencing that recording sessions can, indeed, be relaxing and fun.

Tours and gigs have also brought their share of all sorts of events and occurrences, as is expected. Some of the more memorable ones have been immortalized in the book series ”Rokatessa roiskuu.” The best stories and memories will only remain in the minds of those who experienced them. The first Finnish tour was, I think, with Afterworld in the winter of 1998, when we had a bus that sometimes had neither breaks nor heating. That's rock'n roll. One of the most enjoyable tours was with MOONSPELL and BEFORE THE DAWN in the fall of 2006.

Our last show will be in Oulu, at Club Teatria on May 1st, 2009. The night will also feature two other local bands - SEITH and REFLEXION. The original Embraze-bassist, Petri Henell, plays in Seith, and Reflexion is a band with whom we played together already in the mid-1990s, when we were both taking our fist wobbly steps as bands. Juha Kylmänen, the lead vocalist of Reflexion, also plays in FOR MY PAIN… with Lauri.

More information on the show at Club Teatria website www.teatria.com. Tickets are available through Tiketti and Lippupalvelu (Ticket Service Finland).

Thanks to the bands who gave us an opportunity to tour with them: Afterworld, Moonspell, Sparzanza, Before The Dawn, Maple Cross, Lambs.

Thanks to all our friends and families who have accompanied us on the career.

Special thanks to our manager Topi Hanhela for his faith, hope and love, from the beginning to the end."