siLLy puPPy Following the trajectory of the Finnish psychedelic black metal band ORANSSI PAZUZU is like experiencing an Earth based band fall into a wormhole and accidentally tagging along for the ride. While starting out as a somewhat recognizable black metal band all the way back in 2009 with its debut “Muukalainen Puhuu,” ORANSSI PAZUZU incrementally left the gravitational pull of our host planet and has taken a bonafide space journey into a world of its own making. This eclectic quintet has returned after a four year hiatus with its latest effort MUUNTAUTUJA which translates into something like “Transformative” or “Shapeshifter” which is exactly what this idiosyncratic and eccentric band has clearly become.

MUUNTAUTUJA marks another step beyond the once established parameters of black metal and takes the band into a bizarre web of neo-psychedelia that finds electronic influences taking a much larger role in crafting strange futuristic soundscapes that offer wild otherworldly spaced out effects. While the black metal hasn’t been totally usurped by gurgling synthesizers, trip hop based beats and ominous industrial sounds, any traces of Scandinavian kvlt majesty have been set way down in the mix as to leave only distorted guitar distortion rumblings and the band’s classic raspy vocal style as a beacon of light that points to its origins. Something like a modern day Ulver that never jettisoned the black metal furor, ORANSSI PAZUZU has reached the middle of its wormhole journey with one of its strangest albums yet.

One of the most inventive black metal bands to have emerged in the 21st century, ORANSSI PAZUZU set off like a voyage on the Star Trek Voyager and has crafted a truly unique sound that never remains stationary from album to album. While the earlier albums showcased a post-metal-like procession with cyclical riffs that slowly ratcheted up to crescendoing uproar, the band has always teased in psychedelic embellishments that have indubitably initiated a completely new genre called space metal. By the time the band got to “Mestarin Kynsi” it was apparent that these Finns were heading to the stars without looking back and boldly going where no black metal band has gone before. And the best thing of all is that these talented musicians actually created interesting song structures that made you want to tune in rather than send them off on their mission.

This band has always reveled in juxtaposing the most polarized opposite musical genres together and making strange bedfellows sound like a predestined fit. MUUNTAUTUJA only ups the ante as it takes you on a transcendental musical excursion into an alternate universe where Blut Aus Nord and Portishead commingle in darkened corners with Death Grips and Philip Glass with a touch of Massive Attack, Ministry and Mad Capsule Markets. From the very first oscillating tones of “Bioalkemisti” it’s clear that MUUNTAUTUJA is a completely different beast than what came before and another incremental leap down the avant-garde rabbit hole with surreal musical motifs that shapeshift from one track to the next that sample from a cauldron where the disparate worlds of progressive rock, black metal, trip hop, 20th century classical and industrial rock have been simmering in an undisclosed locus in the midst of the vast Finnish forests.

Along with Dodheimsgard, Ulver, Ved Buens Ende and Ram-Zet, ORANSSI PAZUZU has become one of Scandinavia’s most forward thinking bands and with the closing “Vierivä usva” totally drifting off into space and leaving the metal mojo behind one can’t help but wonder if this band is going to pull an Ulver on us and completely jump into the world of avant-garde electronica. Wherever this inventive band leads many of us avant-metal nerds will surely follow as it is virtually guaranteed that this band will take you somewhere you never knew existed. While i personally found the previous album to be more of my liking, this one is definitely a wild ride into the world of cosmos metal that will leave you gasping for air as you drift beyond the limits our Earthly realms.

UMUR "Mestarin Kynsi" is the 5th full-length studio album by Finnish, Tampere based act Oranssi Pazuzu. The album was released through Nuclear Blast Records in April 2020. It´s the successor to "Värähtelijä" from 2016 but although there have been four years between the two album releases, Oranssi Pazuzu have not layed low in those years as they released the 2019 Waste of Space Orchestra collaboration album "Syntheosis". An album where Oranssi Pazuzu collaborated with members of fellow countrymen Dark Buddha Rising. There´s been one lineup since the predecessor as guitarist Moit has been replaced by Ikon.

Stylistically the material on "Mestarin Kynsi" is psychadelic blackened rock/metal, influenced by 60s/70s krautrock and spacerock artists like Hawkwind, (early) Pink Floyd, and Can, but with an occasional metallic edge and black metal type screaming vocals (screaming out Finnish language lyrics). The music is raw, repetitive, and hypnotic in nature. Sometimes building from a low volume opening to a loud noisy climax, and other times just full-on rocking from the opening to the end of the track (an example of the latter is the closing track "Taivaan Portti").

The sound production is not lo-fi, but it´s deliberately made to sound like it was recorded live in the band´s rehearsal space, while all the members of the band were trippin´ on bad acid. It´s a savage nightmarish affair which sounds like it was born from endless drug-fueled jamming. There are both mellow and more noisy moments on the album, and some of the latter are so noisy and messy that the wall of sound of drums, two guitars, bass, organ, and vocals, drown each other out, and has the effect that the music becomes a white noise drone (again "Taivaan Portti" comes to mind as a good example of that). I´m sure it´s exactly the effect the band were aiming at, but it´s not for the faint at heart, and it´s not exactly easily accessible music.

So "Mestarin Kynsi" is an album to the listener who enjoys jam-like, repetitive, and hypnotic music. There is structure here, but not regular vers/chorus structures. It´s continuously moving and evolving structures and you´ll have to listen a long time for reoccuring themes or conventional hooks. In that respect the material on "Mestarin Kynsi" is highly experimental, which of course isn´t a surprise if you´re familiar with the band´s preceding releases or their influences. A 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.

ssmarcus Full disclosure: I listened to this album genuinely wanting to hate it. Count me as one of those people who barely considers experimental atmospheric black metal as music. But regardless of how you might feel about black metal or the various kinds of atmospheric post-rock sub genres out there today, there is still something irresistible about this record. Every song on this record is a clinic on how to skillfully layer music and build tension. And unlike so much of the music in this sub-genre, the ambience actually contains discernible melodious musical ideas.

However, the tragedy of this record is the insufferable and suffocating black metal vocals. Time after time, vocalist Ontto insists on interrupting the band’s groove with the most grating black metal vocals you’ve ever heard (outside of the lo-fi traditional black metal). It’s not that harsh vocals wouldn’t work with this music at all, it’s the specific style, timing, and perhaps mixing of them that is so off-putting.

Oranssi Pazuzu are clearly an exceptional and envelope shattering group. And while they certainly don’t owe it to anyone to change or adapt their sound in anyway, I genuinely regret that their vocal choices are going to deprive a larger audience of hearing what actually makes this band so exceptional.

siLLy puPPy With a name that refers to an orange colored Babylonian demon, the Finnish band ORANSSI PAZUZU sounds as if it just moved to our planetary system after leaving the Oort Cloud and more than any other modern metal act has brought the term psychedelic metal into the vernacular while more or less making the final case for its inclusion as a bonafide subgenre of the greater extreme metal universe. Although this band was formed as far back as 2007 in Tampere, Finland, it has remained underground like a collective of bottom-feeding fungi that are only visible to those who venture into the dark recesses of the musical universe however album after album this band has grown in stature by crafting a collision of sounds that acts like A.I. as it self-replicates and learns how to perfect itself after every incremental step.

While there was never any doubt amongst the true believers who have been following this band over the last several years that this collective has latched onto the visionary possibilities that can only expand beyond its wildest dreams, perhaps nobody was expecting how quickly this band emerged from the Finnish fens of the great Scandinavian north has wrested itself into the top position of black metal’s highest ranks. With only its fifth album MESTARIN KYNSI ( Finnish for “Master’s Fingernail” ), ORANSSI PAZUZU has struck the perfect balance between the dramatic and calamitous sonic terror of black metal fury with the darkest psychedelic head trips that portend an ominous demonic summoning as if they have found the perfect musical formula to terrorize the astral planes. Talk about a scary trip!

Embedded with a hypnotic minimalistic post-rock style of cyclical grooves and rhythms bringing pioneering forces such as Swans and Neurosis to mind, ORANSSI PAZUZU amplify the psychological effects by taking things up several notches and crafting a true state of visceral anguish expressed in recurring loops of sound that find sonic experimentation and dark avant-garde ambience to frightening new arenas. While the team of Jun-His [Juho Vanhanen] (vocals, guitar), Korjak [Jarkko Salo] (drums), Evill [Ville Leppilahti] (keyboards, synthesizer, organ, effects, percussion) and Ontto [Toni Hietamäki] (bass) remains solid, this cast of darkness has found the replacement of Ikon [Niko Lehdontie] who takes the place of long time guitarist Moit. With a set of six sprawling tracks, ORANSSI PAZUZU has taken the possibilities of psychedelic black metal back into the realms of the Oort Cloud with sonic swirls of scary atmospheric backdrops and effects that envelop every thumping bass groove, every raspy vocal rage and every thundering percussive backdrop fortified by guitar antics from the deep.

Having been based in the aesthetics of black metal since its inception, ORANSSI PAZUZU has grown more confident in its ability to weave a tapestry of electronic intimidation with suffocating eddies of sonic pulsations balanced in a perfect production where a twinkling drone effect envelops the sonic assault like a black hole and the musicians are left to compete behind a resonating wall of sound. In many ways it seems that the results of the ORANSSI PAZUZU experiment have also found the logical conclusion of the pre-OP sounds in the experimental post-punk act Kuolleet Initiaanit. Going for the psychic jugular, MESTARIN KYNSI is designed to craft the ultimate darkened cloud over the world with the one/two punch of heavily distorted black metal in conjunct with eerie atmospheric spectral slices of astral angst.

Keeping the ORANSSI PAZUZU steeped in the Finnish language only adds to the frigid cold alienation of MESTARIN KYNSI which takes the expected route of post-metal styled guitar riffage drifting into expansive terrains while subtle variations of rhythm, pitch and dynamics slowly ooze their way in and out of the scene but this album takes on various new personas by engaging in many moments of non-metal moments by taking unexpected turns into what almost sounds like black techno. The most shocking development is the third track “Uusi Teknokratia” which offers a pounding groove as if The Prodigy or Infected Mushroom had seized control and steered the musical flow into a psytrance induced Krautrock fueled black metal frenzy. If blackened Kraut-metal hasn’t been coined as of yet then surely it could find a nomination after an album like MESTARIN KYNSI.

While ORANSSI PAZUZU seems unable to deliver a substandard album, it is utterly amazing at how this band has continued to progress its experimental psychedelic infused metal craft into ever tighter fine-tuned epic compositions that have found the perfect balance between the most extreme metal bombast and the lucid dreaming airy ambience that sounds as if it has broken Earth’s orbit and set loose in the expansiveness of outer space. Somehow knowing exactly when to break the monotonous spell and take nosedives at hairpin speed precision into progressive fits of rage, this is one band that defies all logic and keeps you on your toes throughout this exhilarating turbulent ride. Having shown even greater potential with the band’s latest collaboration with Dark Buddha Rising as The Waste of Space Orchestra, ORANSSI PAZUZU demonstrates clearly how they can now stand on their own two feet and conquer the extreme metal world with a distinctly unique sound that doesn’t let up until the very last notes of the frightening drone-fueled closer “Taivaan Portti” ceases its metallic orotund hysteria. Needless to say, this one exceeded all expectations. All bow down to the new metal masters.

UMUR "Värähtelijä" is the 4th full-length studio album by Finnish, Tampere based extreme metal act Oranssi Pazuzu. The album was released through Svart Records in February 2016. It´s the successor to "Valonielu" from 2013.

Stylistically the material on "Värähtelijä" is a continuation of the style the band introduced on their debut full-length studio album "Muukalainen Puhuu (2009)" and further developed on "Kosmonument (2011)" and "Valonielu (2013)". It´s a a psychadelic blackened extreme metal style, which is strongly influenced by 60s/70s psychadelic rock (I hear quite a few 1968-69 Pink Floyd influences in the music and some early Hawkwind too) and 60s/70s Krautrock artists like Faust and especially Can. It´s slow building and hypnotic music featuring repetitive beats and bass lines, raw noisy and some atmospheric mellow guitars, swirling psychadelic synths, and a raspy black metal voice in front. The atmosphere is dense and dark, and even in the most mellow atmospheric parts there is an underlying ominous mood to the compositions, which works really well for Oranssi Pazuzu.

Although the material on the 7 track, 69:13 minutes long album, is obviously composed featuring structures (not regular vers/chorus ones though), which develop throughout the tracks, there is a loose organic feel to how the band perform their parts, which provides the music with an unpredictable jam type element. It´s actually one of their strongest assets, although they sometimes seem to get lost in their jams and let them last a bit too long. That´s of course an aquired taste, so I won´t hold it too much again them, and I am greatly entertained throughout most of the album. I´d like to mention the 17:39 minutes long "Vasemman Käden Hierarkia" as one of the highlights of the album, but all tracks are high quality compositions.

"Värähtelijä" is a well produced release too, which features a dark, gritty, and organic sounding production, which suits the material perfectly. So upon conclusion "Värähtelijä" is another strong release by Oranssi Pazuzu. It´s not a revolution of their by now trademark sound, and maybe a bit of development is in order by now, but it´s hard to deny the great qualities of the release and it doesn´t completely feel like Oranssi Pazuzu have stagnated and don´t have anything new to offer either, so a 4 star (80%) rating is still deserved.