Included in Peaceville’s latest bunch of reissues is ‘Rapture’, Unholy’s third album of melancholic, tortured doom, and it is a striking effort from the off. Repackaged here with extra tracks (in this case two rare live cuts) and reworked art inside a super-jewel case this is an excellent chance for fans to revisit this dark work of art and for newcomers to discover exactly what they’ve been missing.
Sounding as pristine now as it did when it first appeared in 1999, the opening track ‘into cold light’ is notable because it is the closest Unholy ever came to the music of The Cure. Bass heavy with a hypnotic tribal rhythm, it is a masterpiece of understated subtlety that draws you deep into the album’s gloomy heart and it sets the scene for the rest of the album appropriately. ‘Petrified spirits’ (also included as a live bonus cut) sees the band playing closer to their traditional strengths with Spartan, processed guitar blasts backing Pasi Aijo’s guttural roar to create a sense of impending doom and darkness even as rays of guitar pierce the murk and keyboards swirl through the mix. With hints of early Paradise Lost coupled with the unholy terror of Darkthrone, this is blackened doom at its finest and as the keyboards and riffs head for a crescendo the band suddenly shift into sun-dappled melodic territory catching you off balance and demanding that you ditch any preconceived notions of what the band might be capable of doing on this outing. This last point is gently, yet forcefully, driven home on the very next song – the stunning ‘for the unknown one’ which features a beautiful vocal contribution from Veera Muhli who perfectly complements the band’s darkly beautiful music. At time of writing this review there is a huge thunder storm taking place outside and there is no more apt a setting than listening to this amazing, hypnotic music at dusk with the rain lashing against the windows and the ominous bursts of thunder punctuating the music.
‘Wunderwerck’ opens with clean guitar before a chunky doom riff, augmented by quite astonishingly gothic, ‘Phantom-of-the-Opera’-style-organ work, takes the listener to an altogether darker place. With a BPM that rarely approaches double, let alone triple, figures, it is a methodically slow piece that creates an air of slow-lingering dread rather than outright menace, whilst musically there is plenty going on to keep interest levels high despite the slow tempo and epic run time (fifteen minutes in total) making it an engaging and inspirational piece of music that is closer to a classical composition thanks to its ebb and flow of ideas, than it is to traditional rock structures. After such a mind-melting piece ‘After God’ has its work cut out, but the band neatly side-step the issue by crafting a piece of music that comfortably feels like an extension to the previous track, or rather a sequel, with a rhythm and atmospheric quality that is almost progressive in its feel. Strikingly intelligent, this is heavy music with both brain and heart and the quality of the music and the musicianship is ubiquitously astonishing throughout the record. ‘Unzetgeist’ is an oddity – a creepy, seventies-horror-movie synth line straight out of John Carpenter allied to a searing blast of guitars and unhinged vocals that recall nothing so much as Australian prog-metallers The Alchemist in an unexpected switch from the claustrophobic material on offer elsewhere. ‘Wretched’ redresses the balance, however, with a painfully slow, creepy riff set to martial drums and overlaid with pained, rasping vocals. Another lengthy work (this time limited to a relatively svelte eleven minutes) it is a funereal work that is almost infinitely deep and layered, requiring repeated listens and preferably appreciated in the depths of night by candlelight. Reflective, rather than depressing, it is a quite monumental work – much like ‘rapture’ is as an album – and it is hard not to feel a sense of awe at the grandeur that Unholy seemingly conjure at will. A similarly lengthy piece, ‘Deluge’ closes the album proper with a slow, somehow beautiful melody that feels like it was written for an orchestra and choir rather than a rock band and which is steeped in lyrical, gothic atmosphere and drama. An instrumental track, It is a fitting end to an album which runs a wide gamut of emotions over its near-seventy-minute run time and which should be revered as a genre classic.
As part of Peaceville’s ongoing commitment to re-release every underground metal album that matters, Unholy’s ‘Rapture’ is an essential addition to any doom fan’s collection. Filled with beauty, despair, claustrophobia and sadness it has moments of near transcendental splendour that stand perfectly juxtaposed against searing brutality and the band’s ability to draw it altogether as a seamless whole is quite unmatched. A brilliantly packaged re-issue that offers the original album as well as two satisfyingly raw live tracks this is a near perfect album of beautifully played, written and recorded music.
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