UNSUN – The End Of Life

Mauser, with full name Maurycy Stefanowicz, who is the ex-guitarist of Polish Death Metal heroes Vader, returns with his new band Unsun. And starting with the first note, one is puzzled, as there is absolutely zero Death Metal on the album, and about the same amount of Thrash. When one sits back and expects a wall of guitar and aggression to press one into his seat, a comparably tame and mellow Gothic Rock tune comes crawling from the speakers. Okay, the album art could have been an indication. After the initial shock, and after restarting the CD, The End Of Life becomes what can only be described as a typical release for this genre.

The only sections that remind of Mauser’s earlier works are a handful of heavy riffs and some interesting solos, apart from that it seems he rather did a service to singer Aya, as the old ingenuity seems strangely absent from The End Of Life . Starting with “Whisper”, the album contains eleven more or less exchangeable Goth songs that span from one side of the genre universe to the other, incorporating aspects of Evanescence and the unavoidable Nightwish on one side to post-Doom Paradise Lost on the other. While Aya fortunately does not try to imitate a Tarja-opera style, her voice is good, but everything but exceptional.

So that means a good singer backed by a mostly unexciting musical performance delivers some reasonably good tracks for over 40 minutes. While one cannot always expect a band to invent a new style, some styles are so extremely overused that Unsun does everything but impress. Even slightly heavier tracks like “The Other Side” or “On The Edge” fail to completely satisfy the listener. Now, that is not a total disaster, as some nice refrains, a handful of good melodies, some well done bombastic parts and boredom avoiding diversity through the use of a piano, acoustic guitar or electronic samples keep the album from being bad. It is just absolutely clear that only real Goth fans can be the target group, and everybody who does not have Within Temptation, Lacuna Coil, Tristania, Edenbridge, Moonspell and the bands above on a permanent repeat-function will not find anything interesting or new on The End Of Life and should try the leading bands of the style first, use the above list for reference.

A standard release for the usual suspects means an average album. It is as simple as that. Now, can we have Mauser return to Vader, please?