Unshine Bio

The sound of Unshine was born practically on the exact day when Susanna visited at our rehearsals for the first time. Four out of five from the present line-up were there witnessing the event. For us guys, the moment was some kind of a musical awakening ('Now I know what (and why) we are playing in here!'). In those days, we had a rehearsal room at the cellar of restaurant Manala in Helsinki. We all have known each other for several years, some of us had previously played together at very diverse musical projects.

At that time (around January/February 2001), we had altogether three finished songs, with lyrics. However, these songs were inherited from our previous band project. Also the lyrics were translated almost straight from the Finnish equivalents. Unshine -name was invented later during the summer.

During the first two years we practised a lot and also tried to define our exact sound. We had our first gig in July of 2002 at Semifinal, Helsinki. Our bass player Teemu joined us during November.

Before our debut, we self-produced two demo-tapes (2002 & 2003) at Saarijärvi, in the studio of Hemmo Hirvonen. Some demo tapes (especially the latter) were then spreaded to certain web medias around the world. Especially after our first demo, we had no clue about the category where we (possibly) belong in. Atmospheric gothic metal was the most common description for our music in the reviews and it is the most describing also at the moment. Our music was very frequently compared to the music of Within Temptation, The Gathering, Lacuna Coil, After Forever, Tiamat etc. However, at that time those names were quite unfamiliar to us.

In February 2003, to our big surprise, we received an e-mail where we were invited to Bilbao, Spain, to attend an European-wide pop-rock -contest among 11 other metal-bands. The invitation was based on our first demo tape that we had sent (almost as a joke) to the competition and we had practically forgotten the whole thing. Altogether, 1250 bands had tried to attend the competition. The gig in front of crowd of 500 spanish was a great experience and a learning lesson for us. It was 7th gig ever with this band.

In the autumn of the same year, we started to rehearsal new songs. The sound changed in to deeper, wider and heavier in many levels. 4 songs were demoed in our new rehearsal room with multi-tracker. We also decided to record these songs (and more) during the spring 2004 in a decent studio. In April, we spent 8 intense days in Saarijärvi recording a number of songs. The songs were then mixed later during the spring.

With the lyrics, the (often) dualistic themes, characters and locations of our songs we aim to reach a timeless experience. From the lyrics, it is possible to find allusions to mythology, folklore, history of Europe, nature religions, old gothic fairy tales and to archetypal creatures. The ultimate essence of the songs could be a dream of the return to the lost paradise still not giving up one's hope. In the demanding modern society, we often forget our arcane roots and our primary location in relation to for example nature, to it's endless cycles of seasons moon and sun.