Finland is not only known as the Land of Thousand Lakes. The country also leads the world list of countries by far with 53.2 heavy metal bands per 100,000 residents. One of those bands caught our interest with their black metal debut and underground album Muukalainen Puhuu (2009). Since then Oranssi Pazuzu explores the black metal spectrum in a way no other band has ever done before. The quartet consisting of Evill (piano, vocals, effects), Ikon (guitar, sampler, synthesisers), Jun-His (voice, guitar), Korjak (drums) and Ontto (bass guitar, synthesisers) have already been bending several music genres into their previous mind blowing album Mestarin Kynsi (2020).
Muuntautuja (Shapeshifter in English) is album number six digging even deeper into that dark, spooky and alien sound spectrum that Oranssi Pazuzu enfolds. The band still sounds psychedelic black metal but what they create on Muuntautuja is not that easy and readily to describe. The use of more electronic structures and effects next to the enigmatic screeching vocals and heavy guitar riffs in the complex songs pushes the receiver into an unknown and experimental sound world. The avant-garde level of the music reaches unheard levels in the black metal genre.
Things get not only very noisy on Muuntautuja, we accede into a puzzling world of soundscapes, creepy bass lines, haunting piano and electronic sounds floating softly like confetti between the controlled dystopian chaos. Muuntautuja is an album with several obscure levels and gives you the feeling of being trapped in a game where you overcome obstacles and discover new paths. Absorbing the Muuntautuja journey is dangerously addictive, the last track on this impressive masterpiece is loaded with a firm dose of impressive cosmic dark ambient that simply guides you back to the beginning of the album.
Oranssi Pazuzu shapeshifts the brain, the thinking path and the mind set of listening to music. This album is a mesmerising and suffocating giant of psychedelic, blackened avant-garde varnished with trip hop influences (we’re thinking of Portishead). Muuntautuja grasses you up into a groundbreaking sonic loop, once hooked you never get out of it.
