Jussi Hänninen: All Music
Tero Ruohonen: All Vocals/Lyrics

Autumnfall is a Finnish melodic black/death metal band founded in 2019 by guitarist and songwriter Jussi Hänninen, best known as a founding member of Fall of the Leafe. Conceived as a spiritual successor to the earliest era of that band, Autumnfall revisits the dark, melodic and atmospheric approach that characterized Fall of the Leafe during the latter half of the 1990s, while developing the sound with a more contemporary production and identity.

The roots of Autumnfall reach considerably further back than the band's official formation. Before Fall of the Leafe adopted its final name, Autumnfall had actually been considered as the band's original moniker, and the word later appeared in the title of Fall of the Leafe's 1996 debut demo, Storm of the Autumnfall. More than two decades later, Hänninen returned to the name when he began writing material inspired by the musical mentality of those formative years.

Autumnfall began taking shape during the summer of 2019 after Hänninen composed a new song using an approach similar to the one he had employed during the early days of Fall of the Leafe. Rather than simply recreating the past, the project became an opportunity to explore that style from a new perspective. Vocalist and lyricist Tero Ruohonen soon joined Hänninen, while drummer Olli Pirkkanen subsequently completed the core line-up.

The band's first material emerged with Demo - 20, introducing a sound built around melodic black metal and death metal while incorporating atmospheric, folk-inspired and distinctly melancholic elements. Autumnfall's music combines harsh vocals, intricate guitar melodies, keyboards and aggressive extreme-metal foundations with a strong emphasis on atmosphere and songwriting. The result retains an unmistakable connection to the Finnish underground metal tradition of the 1990s without functioning merely as an exercise in nostalgia.

Autumnfall's first full-length album, Ghosts of Light, was written and recorded primarily between 2019 and 2020 and released digitally in 2021. The album established the band's identity through a combination of melodic black and death metal, dark atmospheres and the characteristic guitar work of Hänninen. Tero Ruohonen provided the lyrics and vocals, with Olli Pirkkanen handling the drums. The album was later remastered and given a physical release in 2023.

The second album, Bleak, followed in 2022. While retaining the fundamental character established on the debut, the material demonstrated a more deliberate and developed songwriting approach. Autumnfall continued to balance aggression and melancholy, allowing melodic guitar lines and atmospheric passages to coexist with harsher black and death metal elements.

In 2023, Autumnfall released the Nimetön / Taival EP, further expanding the band's catalogue before turning its attention toward a particularly important chapter of Hänninen's musical past.

That connection became the foundation of the third full-length album, The Archaic Shadows, released in 2024. Most of the material on the record originated from songs Hänninen had written as demos for Fall of the Leafe between the late 1990s and the turn of the millennium. Rather than leaving those compositions buried in the archives, Autumnfall reconstructed and newly recorded them, placing the old material within the band's present-day sound.

Consequently, The Archaic Shadows represents perhaps the clearest expression of Autumnfall's purpose. The album creates a direct bridge between the formative years of Fall of the Leafe and Hänninen's later work, preserving the melodic and adventurous character of the original compositions while presenting them with renewed performances and modern production. Its combination of melodic death metal, black metal and folk-influenced passages underlines the distinctive musical territory Autumnfall has continued to explore.

Although closely connected to the legacy of Fall of the Leafe, Autumnfall has developed into an entity of its own. The band draws inspiration from a particular period of Finnish extreme metal while avoiding straightforward revivalism, combining the atmosphere and melodic sensibilities of the past with the experience accumulated by its musicians over the following decades.

At its core, Autumnfall represents both continuation and rediscovery: a project through which unfinished ideas, old influences and new compositions can exist side by side. By returning to the spirit of music created more than two decades earlier without simply attempting to reproduce it, Autumnfall has established a distinctive place within Finnish melodic extreme metal.

Demo - 20 (Demo, 2020)
Ghosts of Light (Album, 2021)
Bleak (Album, 2022)
Nimetön / Taival (EP, 2023)
The Archaic Shadows (Album, 2024)
The Archaic Sins (Album, 2026)

Melodic Black Metal
Finland