Band

UNSHINE is a druid metal band from Finland. The band members include Susanna Vesilahti (vocals), Harri Hautala (guitar, synthesizers, additional vocals), Jari Hautala (guitar), Teemu Vähäkangas (bass) and Jukka Hantula (drums).

The foundation stone of UNSHINE was laid in the beginning of 2000s in Helsinki (Finland), when Susanna was invited to our band rehearsals for the first time. Her musical and personal character clicked with the band instantly. All of us are from South Ostrobothnia, a rural area in Western Finland, and we had previously played together at very diverse musical projects.

Our first years were filled with intensive rehearsing and song composing. In the beginning of 2002 we recorded our first demo PROMO 2002 with three songs. The following summer we played our first gigs. Soon after the second demo PROMO 2003 we started to get positive attention and feedback especially from foreign music webzines. Our sound was categorized to “atmospheric gothic metal” along with Within Temptation, The Gathering, Lacuna Coil, After Forever, Tiamat etc. This was pretty surprising, as at this point, we did not really know how to categorize the music we play. “It’s heavy, but it’s not heavy.” More on, we played more gigs in Finland and along with intensified practising the sound advanced to more heavier and deeper levels.

Our 1st demo had actually also spawned an invitation to a European pop/rock -contest Bilborock 2003 in Spain. It was our 1st gig abroad. Following this, we started composing our 1st full-length album, EARTH MAGICK. During 2005, we signed a record deal with a Finnish record label, Low Frequency Records and the album was released both in Finland (by LFR) and in North America by Crash Music. After the release, we toured Finland and were invited to play a club show at Finnish metal festival Tuska.

The album number two, THE ENIGMA OF IMMORTALS came out in 2008 and the single from it, ANIMAL SPIRIT, reached top 10 single charts in Finland. We also made our 1st European tour playing European stages in Germany, Poland, Czech etc. After this album, we also had our 1st major European festival performance at Sweden Rock 2010.

The 3rd album DARK HALF RISING (Massacre Records, 2013) was our 1st true international release. It was a theme album about the ancient Gallic Wars and it more or less defined our “druid metal” sound. Following that, we played an album release concert at Festival-Mediaval in Germany and had a show also at FemME 2015 in The Netherlands.

In 2017 we signed with Rockshots Records and published our 4th album, ASTRALA, both in Europe and in North America in the beginning of 2018. For this album, we introduced a more Nordic sound and wrote a couple of songs all in Finnish language. During the same year, we were invited to a European tour with Haggard and Sound Storm as a special guest in the Bards of Symphony and Metal tour.

Our fifth album was recorded during the worldwide COVID-19 years. During 2022 we signed a booking and management deal with German Redlionmusic. We also re-signed with Rockshots Records and KARN OF BURNINGS was released in March 2024.