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Arkadia is a Finnish Metal act that has been around since 2003 and has released quite a few demos and EPs over the years. Unrelenting is the band's debut album, which was the next logical step for them as I'm sure they didn't want to release a 26th demo and/or EP. :)

Musically, we are talking about a pretty Finnish-sounding Metal act here and that means a lot of melody and melancholia and fair doses of sentimentality, sadness and sorrow. If one band can be used for a straight comparison to Arkadia, that band would perhaps be the disbanded Finnish Metal act Cryhavoc. Both bands do sound good in their own right but Cryhavoc was a bit better on the two albums they recorded for Spinefarm Records in 1998 and in 1999 (and then quite soon, disbanding for good). Cryhavoc sounded fresh back then, while Arkadia don't because there's been tons and tons of similar sounding acts since the turn of the millennium that fuse modern Heavy Metal with melodic Death Metal. Many of them have sucked anyway and I feel like Arkadia doesn't really bring any extra value to this pool of melodic and utterly melancholic Finnish Metal. The instrumental tune "The Decisions of Yesterday (Will Haunt Us Down") is the album's highlight and reminds me a bit of Sentenced's later era. The rest of their songs never attain the level of interest that would send shivers down one's neck. The growled vocals are pretty powerful but the clean vocals make me feel sympathetic embarrassment for them. With death grunts only, Arkadia would do much better, I suppose.

Unrelenting wasn't a complete pile of pig shit but lots of improvements are needed in the future so that Arkadia won't become one of those one-album miracles that eventually vanishes away like a poor fly's fart in the strong winds of the Sahara Desert.