In the insulated sphere of esoteric heavy metal, there are bands that perform, and then there are vessels that channel. Unfyros, a trio emerging from the spectral wilderness of Oulu, Finland, firmly identifies as the latter. Their work is presented not as entertainment, but as a lifelong ritual and a tool for reaching beyond known dimensions. This is the central, non-negotiable narrative of the band, and it forms the entire foundation of their upcoming second full-length album, ‘Star Blood.’

The album, a work of seven invocations woven into forty minutes , is scheduled for release on December 12, 2025. This release marks the band’s new and significant alignment with the esteemed Italian label Avantgarde Music. The label recently announced it had joined forces with Unfyros for the foreseeable future, and appears to be the perfect partner to handle an artifact of such specific, ritualistic intent.

As the first signal from this new work, the band has announced the lead single, ‘Black Magnetism.’ This track serves as the first public intonation, a primary piece of evidence for the album’s profound and menacing atmospheres.

A Ritualist’s Path to Metal

To appreciate Unfyros, one must first recognize that it is not a beginning, but a synthesis. The project is the primary manifestation of its founder, Anti Ittna H. (A.I.H.), a figure who has spent decades plumbing the depths of esoteric sound. His path did not begin with metal, but it has, by seeming necessity, led him back to it.

A.I.H. is known in the underground for his formative work in the Finnish group Dolorian. That band, which has been on hold since 2006, was a crucial precursor, practicing a unique form of ambient blackened doom metal that already prioritized atmosphere and bleak, meandering mood over raw aggression. Yet, following Dolorian, A.I.H. largely departed the metal scene for a deeper, more abstract practice within the ritual and dark ambient spheres, primarily through the Helixes and Aural Hypnox collective.

His work in projects like Arktau Eos and Halo Manash is central to this journey. Arktau Eos is described not as a band but as a spiritual congregation practicing minimal ritual ambient music, with a stated purpose of capturing fleeting moments of oneiric activity. Halo Manash ventured even further, an experimental project using e-bowed guitars, electronics, and a bone flute to facilitate communion with elemental beings.

For nearly two decades, this ritual intent was his focus. This context makes the formation of Unfyros in 2018 a profound artistic statement. Why return to the structured, comparatively rigid form of heavy metal? A.I.H. has framed the purpose of Unfyros as a means to give a solid form to the numerous tunes and voices he perceived calling and haunting him endlessly in the dark of the night.

His ambient work was adept at channeling fleeting sensations, but metal, with its primal and visceral nature, offered something else: raw power. Unfyros is the weaponization of his ambient practice. It is not a metal band dabbling in esotericism; it is a master ritualist adopting metal as a more potent, tangible vessel to answer the same call of the concealed.

From ‘Alpha Hunt’ to a Three-Edged Dagger

The Unfyros project began as a solitary venture for A.I.H. from 2018 to 2020. This initial phase culminated in the 2022 debut album, ‘Alpha Hunt.’ That record, released through A.I.H.’s own Aural Hypnox orbit , was the first test of this new solid form. It established the band’s sonic blueprint: a unique mixture of old-school, mid-tempo black and heavy metal that emphasized a dark, hypnotic and menacing atmosphere.

The sound was monolithic and obsessive , a clear departure from the velocity of traditional black metal and a direct link to A.I.H.’s doom-laden past.

But the singular solid form was incomplete. The very act of manifesting this music demanded a stronger force. In 2021, Nox Vector joined on drums and percussion, and in early 2023, to facilitate a small tour of Finland, T. Von Kollaja was brought in on bass. The band’s own biography makes the significance of this clear, noting that a three-edged dagger was born.

This is not casual language. In esoteric traditions, the dagger is a primary ritual tool, an implement for directing will and raw power. The completion of the Unfyros lineup from a solo project into a trio was not a matter of practicality, but of magical necessity. The vessel had to be perfected.

This three-edged dagger is the entity that created ‘Star Blood.’ The album’s primal and visceral journey is only possible because the trance-inducing, forward-driving drumming of Vector and the lucid and monolithic bass lines of Von Kollaja provide the rhythmic, grounding engine for A.I.H.’s dissonant yet transformative guitar work.

Sonic Invocation: The ‘Black Magnetism’

As the first official single from the new album, ‘Black Magnetism’ is the primary invocation. It builds upon the hypnotic and ritualistic mid-tempo chassis of ‘Alpha Hunt’ but drives it forward with a new, relentless focus. The sound is not designed for headbanging; it is designed for trance. The forward-driving drumming acts as a disorienting pulse, a heartbeat to sync the listener’s consciousness to the ritual.

The guitars are dissonant yet transformative, functioning less as traditional riffs and more as serrated texture. The band’s own description of its vocals as a swarm of spectral daggers is perfectly apt; A.I.H.’s raspy, commanding voice is not a performance but a proclamation, a channeled presence given sound.

The accompanying music video for ‘Black Magnetism’ serves as a critical extension of this ethos. It is a visual document of the band’s core philosophy, adhering to their strict “do-it-yourself” ethos. Rejecting the sterile, high-definition artifice of modern digital videos, the piece is a work of real analog methods. It is not a performance video. Instead, it presents the spectral wilderness of Northern Finland and the forest-cloaked solitude as the ritual’s setting.

The band members are captured as practitioners, not personalities, their forms perhaps obscured by shadow or the analog film grain. The video is a visual confirmation of their method: to preserve the raw and tangible essence of sound and image alike and maintain the purity of the vision.

The ‘Star Blood’ Conceptual Language

‘Star Blood’ is presented as a complete, self-contained conceptual artifact. Its structure, seven invocations woven into forty minutes, immediately frames the album as a grimoire—a book of magical instruction—or, as the band describes it, a pilgrimage through dissolution and ascent. The listener is not meant to passively consume songs; they are being actively guided through a seven-step ritual.

The size of the choice is irrelevant. The act of choosing is everything. It is the physiological antidote to helplessness, restoring a sense of agency that trauma and illness have tried to erase.

The album’s conceptual language, detailed in official press materials, is not a collection of buzzwords but a literal description of the narrative content. The work is described as a channel for a beckoning, mind-possessing androgynous entity of unfathomable dimensions.

It is an event, torn open by the emanations of the knot of the night. It is a map, documenting a stairway descending toward the great white flame and the utmost gate deep within. And it is a transcription of beguiling, ensnaring whispers from the shimmering subconscious black mirror that seized both mind and flesh alike.

This profound conceptual rigor is mirrored by an equally rigorous methodological purity. The band’s insistence on a “do-it-yourself” ethos and real analog recording and mixing methods  at their own TriArk Chapel and Katajan Kaiku analogue studio is a philosophical necessity. In a ritual designed to channel metaphysical entities and capture whispers from beyond, digital artifice would be a contaminant. The raw and tangible essence of sound  is the only medium pure enough to serve as an authentic conduit. Their studio is a temple; its analog-only doctrine is the unwavering dogma.

The Finnish Key: A Tool, Not a Trope

Positioning Unfyros within their national scene requires careful distinction. They are, at first glance, an anomaly. They bear no resemblance to the two most globally recognized Finnish metal exports. They are not the folk-metal of Korpiklaani, Finntroll, or early Amorphis; there are no bagpipes or happy atmospheres. Unfyros’s work is oppressive and menacing.

Nor do they fit the mold of the “original Finnish black metal” pioneers like Beherit and Archgoat. Their sound is not the raw, high-speed chaos of their 90s antecedents. Instead, their mid-tempo , monolithic, and hypnotic pace connects more to the natural draw towards really depressive and sad doom that also characterizes the Finnish underground, a clear lineage from A.I.H.’s own ambient blackened doom work in Dolorian.

The most accurate classification for Unfyros is not regional, but philosophical. Their true contemporaries are found in the esoteric current defined by academia as “Ritual Black Metal.” Scholar Kennet Granholm, in his work on the subject, identified this scene—primarily linked to Swedish bands like Watain and Dissection—as one where music is explicitly used as divine worship or communion, an expression of and tool for initiatory processes.

Unfyros’s entire stated ethos is a perfect, textbook embodiment of Granholm’s definition. The description of their work as a lifelong ritual, a tool for reaching beyond known dimensions, and a means to answer the call of the concealed aligns precisely. They represent a rare, unblemished Finnish expression of this esoteric-first approach, where the music is, without irony or artifice, an occult practice.

The Path to the Utmost Gate

The seven invocations of ‘Star Blood’ will be made physically manifest on December 12, 2025. Avantgarde Music will release these ritual artifacts in several formats.

For initiates, a 4-panel digipak CD, which includes a 16-page booklet, will be available. For vinyl adherents, a 180-gram black vinyl edition will be offered, complete with its own 12-page booklet. Pre-orders for these items are now active through the label and its allied distributors.

In the live arena, the three-edged dagger of the Unfyros trio was first tested during the 2023 Crepuscular Finnish Forest Mysticism tour alongside Hexvessel. The band performed a single, focused rite in Jyväskylä in September 2024. However, no new live rituals have been announced to coincide with the release of ‘Star Blood.’ Followers must wait for the band to announce the next chapter of their live communion.

Beyond the Black Mirror

‘Star Blood’ is, without question, more than a highly anticipated album in the black metal underground. It is a document. It is the solid form given to decades of atavistic consciousness and painstaking esoteric labor. It is a pilgrimage made public, an invitation to gaze into the subconscious black mirror that Anti Ittna H. and his coven have, by their own account, torn open. The album is not the ritual’s end—it is the key.

Unfyros’s music is described as a tool to thin the veils between realities. For those familiar with Anti Ittna H.’s ritual ambient work and his past in Dolorian, how do you perceive metal as a vessel for this kind of esoteric practice?