Band:	Halysis
Album:	Unbury The Sun
Style:	Melodic death metal, Metalcore
Release date:	December 2023

01. Myriad Return
02. Exordium
03. Between Worlds
04. Devoid
05. Polaris
06. Unbury The Sun
07. Hamartia
08. Equinox
09. Forlorn
10. The Dark Aura

Halysis pitch themselves as a modern death metal band; the extent to which their particular sound revolves around death metal fluctuates, but the stylistic synthesis delivered here is very much that of a modern band.

The Finnish five-piece are back with their second album, Unbury The Sun, following 2020 debut Cerulean, and they’re back in a big way here. In terms of genres, this new album isn’t easy to place; if one were to look for a ‘primary’ category to put them in, perhaps progressive death could do, but it’s prog death of a frequently melodic variety that also regularly dips its toes towards metalcore and techier death metal. It’s the exact kind of ‘familiar yet distinctive’ sound that does a lot to get me on board with an album quickly, and it’s backed up by some pretty solid songs.

Following a brief intro, things get properly started with “Exordium”; when listening to this song, I find myself picking up on some Ne Obliviscaris vibes, even if there’s no super-long structure, double bass drum abuse or violins. There’s something about the gloomy atmosphere, convoluted riffs and soft/harsh vocal interchange that slightly scratches that itch for me. Still, there’s other tools in the song’s arsenals, with some tasty deathcore-leaning chugging riffs, swift techy guitar flourishes, and a dainty clean guitar mid-song interlude. “Exordium” does a good job of establishing the breadth of establishing the range of Halysis’ songwriting, even if it perhaps doesn’t have the most naturally flowing structure on the album; still, I am keen on the dual-vocal chorus, which is the first of many appealing hooks on Unbury The Sun.

After the 6 minutes of “Exordium”, there’s a string of shorter tracks, but they each manage to fit a few different flavours in. The rolling groove that occurs in the beginning of “Between Worlds” reminds me somewhat of Cave Bastard’s most recent record, but the remaining song trades such groove-oriented sections with flurries of intense tech-death and a proggy chorus with a synthetic sci-fi touch, while “Devoid” puts the band’s classic metalcore influences on display while still incorporating some prog and death metal cues. Of this trio of songs in the 3-minute range, the techy, frantic “Polaris” perhaps finds the most impressive balance of extremity and melody, hitting a similar ‘melo-tech-death’ sound to Inferi that is further lit up at the end by some delightful melodic guitar leads.

I would hesitate to pinpoint any aspect of Unbury The Sun as lesser than the rest, as I think there’s a high degree of competence across the board; however, perhaps the clean vocal delivery, which mostly very enjoyable, is prone to occasional moments that don’t quite hit the same. One song where I pick up on this is “Equinox”, as a few vocal melodies sound as if an odd note has gone awry; however, there’s so much to enjoy about this song otherwise that it feels like nitpicking to focus on that. From the blackgaze-esque euphoric opening tandem of uplifting tremolo and blasts, through the mournful melodeath leads in the chorus and the soaring mid-song build, and finally to the very turn-of-the-millennium metalcore/Gothenburg-style solo, “Equinox” is one of the highlights here.

Another highlight is the title track, which has almost blackened touches at times to the harsher vocals and the blastier passages, but also reprises those NeO hints when the clean vocals accompany ominous, proggy, chugging riffs. I’ve got no complaints about Henry Hämäläinen’s clean singing here; the general melodicism of the song, amongst the intensity, also stands out, with a delightful midsection that builds off of quiet yet dramatic-sounding electronics and layers upon some lush clean singing before erupting in a burst of screams and rapid-fire drumming. The last standout song on Unbury The Sun is the album’s longest, the closing song “The Dark Aura”. From tech-death beginnings, through metalcore breakdowns and subsequent clean proggy parts, it builds a satisfying gloomy atmosphere that is thrown a curveball late on by the unexpected appearance of what sounds like an accordion right at the end.

There’s perhaps some occasional roughness across Unbury The Sun, but it has more than enough quality in its locker to have hooked me in, and I can see myself returning to it in future. If Halysis can continue to mature and build upon the platform set by this album, I’m excited to see what comes next.