Review Summary: Fallenmania, part 10
Fallenmania is going to cover a wide range of artists, including many you wouldn’t necessarily expect to see, but mostly, it’s going to be about bands that are halfway between gothic metal and alternative metal, because I haven’t run out of those bands yet.
Today, I am catching up with UnSun, a band I reviewed on the Metal Archives way back in the day. Their second and last album, “Clinic For Dolls”, is more solid than the first one, but it's just as dark, with its sad lyrics and distinctive sound that’s right at the intersection between goth and alt metal, without clearly fitting into either. If this album has a genre, it’s the Fallen style, and it has some pretty good songs in that style. Opening track “The Lost Way” proves it easily, with its piano and heavy beat, followed by a fallen-inspired riff and an instantly memorable “How much more can I take? What will come with the new day?” chorus.
The other songs are in the same style, but with enough differences and their own strong points. You get heavier tracks like the title track, with its heavy riff, slight symphonic metal influence and mysterious, sort of poetic lyrics about sad dolls. “Mockers” is one of the album’s heaviest, angriest and saddest songs, condemning bullies. Aya Stefanowicz’s singing is still heavily accented, weirdly raspy and shaky, and hard to understand, but it is part of the song’s infinitely sad atmosphere. That’s even more obvious on “Home”, my personal favorite, a comfort listen just like a lot of Evanescence, Flyleaf and Within Temptation songs (it even sounds like a mix of all of those), which has the best riff, best melody, and so much poignant sorrow expressed on the chorus that you don’t need to understand the lyrics to feel it. It’s not as convincing on “Time”, where the lyrics are even less clear and the melody isn’t that memorable, but I like the imagery about the rain that keeps falling as if it cried for humanity.
A quick overview of the weaker songs: “The Last Tear” is a very average piano ballad, but at least Aya sings with lots of emotion. “Not Enough” has a darker atmosphere, and the simple but efficient melody used in a lot of UnSun songs, except it’s not as catchy. “A Single Touch” is a rather generic mix of industrial and goth metal sound, but it’s the type of generic I like. The album gets a little less interesting in its second half, but there are some entertaining songs at the end. “I ceased” starts as a ballad, suddenly becomes heavy, with UnSun’s typical pop/goth/alt metal sound. Why is a really good ending to the album, with its wild guitar and industrial sounds, very Linkin Park crossed with gothic metal.
You may or may not like that type of angsty lyrics and Fallenmaniac sound, but if you’re receptive to that, this album is a really good example of it. It has definitely more solid songwriting and more memorable songs that its predecessor. This album convinced me that UnSun deserves respect.
Yes, this band can feel very gimmicky, with their pop/goth metal sound and over-the-top angsty goth lyrics and aesthetic, plus the fact that Mauser took a break from Vader to form a goth metal band with his wife Aya during the goth metal boom, before breaking up the band after two albums, when their style wasn’t trendy anymore. These are the reasons why this band isn’t taken seriously by many. Even I will admit that they’re not among the greatest, but they’re at least one of the good ones, and I’ll always defend them. To those critics (or mockers?), I’ll respond that their short career was mostly due to Aya’s health problems rather than trends changing. But more importantly, they’re a pretty good band, and this album is their best. I love their sad songs, Aya’s strange voice and their cartoon goth look. This is a band I’ll always remember fondly, one of my favorites from this series. I wouldn’t have minded hearing more UnSun albums, which would have greatly improved their reputation, but at least we’ll always have “Clinic For Dolls” to enjoy.
