Helsinki, Finland's Thy Row, which is helmed by Metal De Facto and Everfrost vocalist Mikael Salo will be releasing the debut album Unchained on September 24, 2021 via Rockshots Records / Rubicon Music (Japan).

Today, the band shares their new music video for their third single "The Downfall, Part 3: Fragments Of Memory", a song inspired by vocalist Mikael Salo's grandmother’s battle with Alzheimer’s disease.

"‘Fragments Of Memory’ was born in a songwriting camp in Thailand with our guitar players Ville and Jussi and our producer Sami. This song was first given a working title ‘Tiger’, inspired by the Tiger Temple. Jussi started to play this oriental theme where Ville made the haunting chords for the background. Ville had this riff for chorus where it all started to build up. Even Though we had great parts in the song but the parts refused to work together. Everything was just too progressive. When Mikael added vocal melodies the song's idea started to lighten up and now it is one of our favourite songs on the album." 

Being the third and final song of our trilogy “The Downfall”, it deals with a very heavy and personal topic: losing the grip on our reality through Alzheimer’s disease. Mikael wanted to explore the topic as a kind of therapy having experienced the disease in his family, trying to imagine how it must be to go through something like that through our protagonist’s eyes. The character has arrived at the final stop of the downfall. His persona and memories all start to fade away, the scariness of how that must feel is taking over as the numbed trip towards the end begins. We hold many things for granted in life, and just being healthy in both body and mind is something to truly be grateful for," Salo adds.

Founded in 2017, the band made their first entry on the Finnish scene with their 2019 independently released self-titled EP. The record's lead single "The Round" reached over 110K streams on Spotify and added to the EP's overall praise that gave the group the opportunity to tour Japan in 2019 with Beast In Black and Swallow The Sun.

Ready to follow up the success of that EP, Thy Row's first full-length offers up a fresh mix of the finest heavy metal with modern hard rock that every metalhead can bang their heads to. With ten tracks plus a bonus cover of X Japan's "Blue Blood" for its Japanese release, there are lots of great melodies spiced up with shakin’ riffs that are sure to encourage fans to turn up their stereo knobs all the way to eleven and enjoy.

“Our fans have waited for this album since we released our EP. We showed everyone that we are a force to be reckoned with and this record is going to prove that to everyone.” comments bassist Juho Jokimies.

Unchained features guest artists Ben Varon (Oceanhoarse, ex-Amoral), Ilja Jalkanen (Raskasta Joulua, Kiuas), and Teemu Mäntysaari (Wintersun, Smackbound) plus was mixed by Jussi Kraft (Starkraft Studio) and partly by Nino Laurenne (Sonic Pump Studios). Mastering was handled by Grammy-nominated Svante Forsbäck of Chartmakers Mastering (Rammstein, Volbeat).

The story behind the record is the telling of Thy Row becoming a band and the tale of their collective brotherhood as they grow and learn from one another. Many of the tracks deal with personal matters from each member. 

"Creating this album was a long and a hard process, but it was also a road we wanted to walk to be able to present this music to the people. With a guitar case in hand, not knowing each other originally, we became friends and we made this album with pure innocent passion and love for the music. Every song, every story is connected to our lives and our friendship, and we hold this piece very close to our hearts! Each one of us gave our best and more, developing as musicians and people in the process. None of us wanted to compromise in any area, and that made the creation process extremely long and difficult. However, we feel that our debut album is a victory of not giving up, supporting your team members when the going gets tough, and crossing the finishing line with pride and determination. The story, the sound and the process are the epitome of our lives, thoughts and experiences from those times we were making this album, and we hope that people will enjoy this ride we have to offer!"

Preorder at the Rockshots Records webshop.

Tracklisting:

“Road Goes On”
“The Round”
“Unchained”
“Horizons”
“Hidebound”
“Just Fine”
“Down On My Knees”
“The Downfall, Part 1: Killing All Inside”
“The Downfall, Part 2: Beyond Reason”
“The Downfall, Part 3: Fragments of Memory”
“Blue Blood” (X Japan cover – Japanese bonus track)

"Fragments Of Memory" video:

"Horizon" video:

“Road Goes On” video: