Unholy - The Second Ring Of Power

I ordered this album without any knowledge of the band or any preview of the music what-so-ever. In fact, it was a replacement for a Nokturnal Mortum cd that was out of stock in my rather large order to Battle Kommand. I'm glad I took the risk, because this is one of the best doom metal albums to cross my ears for some time.

Finnish band Unholy has flown mostly under the radar of metal, and their current disbandment certainly doesn't do much to help. As far as I can gather, the band formed in the late 80s, and lasted a decade putting out four albums, two demos, and an ep, before finally breaking up in 1999.

Surprisingly, this was released in 1994. You would never guess it though from the sound of it. The album is well produced and clear. The music has the usual slow doomy guitars, but one thing stands out. Unlike generic doom bands these days that merely play really, really slow chord progressions, Unholy experiment in their musical direction. You may occasionally hear some guitar leads on tracks like "Dreamside" and "Procession of Black Doom."

I would compare the atmosphere and mood of this album to be Disembowelment; it has the same drugged-up, sluggish halocinogenic feeling. Occasionally, the strains of female vocals are heard. They are not angelic nor operatic, but rather deeper and fleshier sounding rather lost, almost chant-like.

This has been one of my best musical finds this year. I would highly suggest any doom metal fan to check this out.