UNFYROS – Star Blood

vote
7.0

• Bands:
  UNFYROS
• Duration: 00:40:00
• Available from: 12/12/2025
• Label:

• Avantgarde Music

Streaming not yet available

Antti Haapapuro is a Finnish musician with a very long career and great prolificacy: in almost thirty years of activity on the black and ambient scene he has in fact given life to around ten projects, many of which are solitary and mostly currently on standby. Unfyros are probably the band on which he decided to concentrate his efforts in recent years, releasing a first full-length in 2022 and a second in these days.

Labeling our band's offering is relatively simple: we are in fact faced with a black-doom with strong ambient influences, rather linear to listen to and produced with good taste.
A clarity of intent that proves to be anything but obvious in its creation, above all thanks to some measures – such as a dynamic approach to the use of synths and a subtle sci-fi vein – which outline peculiar atmospheres, in which ritualistic intentions take on a contemporary, even futuristic declination. “Star Blood” therefore sounds like a very appropriate title for this work, which seems to describe sacrifices performed on alien altars, quest sidereals and cults as old as cosmic dust.

Emphasis on the rhythm section, vocals that evoke a dark shamanism, an approach to writing in which the stylistic features of doom are filtered through the canons of black, sometimes with the support of some 'post-' solution: this is the picture that “Her Freezing Wings” outlines from the beginning, and which establishes almost all the fundamental characteristics of “Star Blood”. The deep drums and the supporting bass amalgamate the dense base of dark matter on which Unfyros sprinkle clouds of synths and, in the case of “Elemental Poison”, even some icy sparkles of acoustic guitar.
However, it is perhaps on “Black Magnetism” (paradoxically one of the most conventional tracks of the platter) that we can grasp more clearly how, behind the freshness of “Star Blood”, an intelligent camouflage of retro influences – from Black Sabbath to the Swedish black scene – called into question without ever 'naming' them openly and without ever falling into quotationism. To these sources, “Dark Talisman” also adds some touches of horror rock, thanks to a gothic synth and a captivating vocal line.

“Star Blood” has the indisputable merit of not indulging in verbosity and of presenting itself as compact when listening, direct in form and solid in vision: there are neither dead points nor missteps, even if the strong internal coherence of the album occasionally leads to a certain repetitiveness.
Furthermore, despite appreciable research into sound and convincing songwriting, perhaps that is missing quid capable of imprinting the album in the memory. However, it remains a recommended listen, especially for those who prefer the darker and more imaginative nuances of the extreme.