Unholy

The bad luck that was present in the recordings of the first album seemed to continue in early spring 1994, as the band entered the studio in Imatra, their home town. In the first days of the sessions the rock’n roll life of certain individual badly delayed the recordings. When the session then began everything went well, although the schedule was once again very tight. The recordings took seven days to complete and the mixing was done in three days, under supervision of the band. When the whole thing was over everybody in the band felt the album was brilliant. The difference between From the Shadows and The Second Ring of Power was a light year, or more. Still, the unholy-style was clearly to be recognised, although the music was somewhat different than before.

The second album got very controversial welcome among the metal press and metal audiences. People seemed to either love it or hate it, there was nothing in between, which the band found very satisfying. But in the end the album did not sell as much as was expected, and thus the planned tour had to be cancelled. Although the sales very much better than the sales of the first album, it was not enough to pull Unholy up from the underground scene to the consiousness of bigger audiences. The band had aimed high with The Second Ring of Power , but when nothing happened frustration started to take hold of the band. After finishing few scheduled gigs in autumn 1994, the situation within the band called for a break so that each individual could pull his act together. Finally, the break ended up into a full halt. Band was freezed in December 1994, while each member drifted in different directions with their lives, as well as with their musical experiments.

This period which started with high hopes and ended to a full stagnation, also brought up few contradictions within the band. These differences in individual views were both musical and personal, though they were not alone the reason to halt the band. The decision to withdraw from the scene was a common one, and it was made with no hard feelings. Since then there has not been any arguments between the bandmembers, not between the 1994 line-up or the present one. The possibility of reunion was not considered impossible, but only very unlikely.

Although the band was not working anymore, the Unholy fans did not forget the band. The Second Ring of Power sold several thousand copies, and the fans kept asking when the band will return. All this was of course very much welcomed by the bandmembers, who now realized that they had a worldwide fan network, not a huge one, but very loyal and humble.

The Second Ring of Power today

In 1999 Avantgarde Music also decided to reissue The Second Ring of Power (1994), which had ran out of stocks by then. The original artwork of the album was in condition which did not allow proper reproduction. Therefore, the album cover of the 1999 reissue is different from the original one, though the changes compared to the original were minimal.

The third coming of The Second Ring Of Power happened in 2011 with Peaceville Records, the present owner of release rights to all Unholy albums. According to the band’s reissue policy an old VHS-quality bootleg video dating back to autumn 1994 was dug up. After some serious post-production and editing, it came to fit perfectly as bonus material for the reissued second album in DVD-format. Juha Vuorma The Great kindly produced completely new cover art for the reissue, which, however, bears some familiar elements from original cover artwork. So, finally, everything else but the original songs were completely reformed. Peaceville also released LP version of this album in 2017.

The original front cover

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