Band:	Unholy
Album:	From The Shadows
Style:	Death doom metal
Release date:	1993

01. Alone
02. Gray Blow
03. Creative Lunacy
04. Autumn
05. Stench Of Ishtar
06. Colossal Vision
07. Time Has Gone
08. The Trip Was Infra Green
09. Passe Tiermes

Unholy is a sparkling diamond from the darkest forests of Finland, a band of unequaled emotional beauty and sorrow that always tended to follow its unique path in the world of music, atmosphere and emotions. "From The Shadows" is not only the title of their fabulous debut album, but also the place from where Unholy unleash their doomed to the bone and exceptional music and the place where you will drown through their obscure and grey atmosphere, in the shadows.

"From The Shadows" is not a masterpiece like the releases that followed it, but it is a really remarkable beginning for the band, showing all the elements that would soon be presented in more mature and affected ways to the audience. The song structure is really good but it could have been better for sure, but since the sound of the band is in a primary phase we shouldn't expect something extremely great from their debut album. The production is better than the one on the self-financed "Trip To Depressive Autumn" EP of 1991, but still, more work was needed to have a really good production, something that started happening from "The Second Ring Of Power" and on.

The vocals are mainly twisted and painful screams that torment the listener's soul, but they turn to clean melodic vocals at times that evoke a more wailing feeling to the overall aesthetic of the band. As for the guitars, the riffing is heavy and it rises slowly from the dusty and forgotten guitars, but the times it turns to some really inspired and non-compromising distressing solos are not few. The echoing guitar chords couldn't be missing since they evoke quite an obscure beauty in the atmosphere of the compositions. Needless to say that the drumming is powerful and imposing, creating walls of sound along with the pulsating bass lines, but I think the role of the rhythm section could have been more vivid and powerful if the production was better. Well, the doom audience can live with it as it is, so I don't think I will complain more about it. As for the keyboard melodies the only thing I have to say is that they are just wonderful and they are placed in the compositions at the right moment so as to evoke that dreary and mystical feeling the band always had. Well-executed, they are not something affected, but still, it doesn't have to be complicated to be great and Unholy definitely knew on "From The Shadows" how to create a great and surrounding atmosphere through the simplicity of the keyboard passages.

Some songs that someone may choose as highlights from the album are definitely the at the same time powerful and atmospheric "Alone" (the emotional crystalline keyboard passage that starts echoing after 4:36 is so dreamy?), the distressing and wailing "Gray Below" with the menacing atmospheres that rise like walls of fear before the very eyes of the listener, the powerful and intense "Colossal Vision" etc.

The fans of the band already own "From The Shadows", as for the others, you should try first "The Second Ring Of Power", "Gracefallen" or "Rapture" and then head for their debut album, it's really good, but it would be better I think to try out their masterpieces first.