Oranssi Pazuzu : "Muuntautuja"

The best explanation for what happens on this album is Finland is growing killer shrooms. Their weed must not be that shabby either. The opening track is closer to black metal than not, just with more of a noise rock bass line driving it. The singer is the only one who is still angry, so he must be the designated driver here. The second song finds the drugs really beginning to take a turn. The drummer is the most lucid member at this point. The shrooms are starting to kick in on their vocalist who has relented to this mind expansion, It chills him out into more of an alien chant. Normally I complain when bands go for more of a sound than writing a song, as this tends to drone, but the layers introduced along the way work well enough. They do bring the heavy midway into the song. 

Once again things are flowing rather than following a well-charted arrangement. Most of their songs are written from jamming. This album is the best of those takes with overdubs dropped in. 

"Voitelu" finds things ebbing down to being almost more of a metal band again. Tempo wise I would call this progressive sludge. The vocals are fighting between tripping their balls off and going back into their more aggressive persona. The bass player who was once holding this together is now too far gone. A piano line was written in a moment of clarity to make this feel like a song, Chaos is really reigning here. Experimentation is swallowing composition. What is band practice like for these guys? 

They smoke some weed and mellow things out as it drifts away from metal into something Radiohead might do in one of their more depressive grooves. The whispered vocals tell me they were not really thinking about writing vocals for this one, but then remembered the song needed something. Going into "Valotus" they are trying to remember they are humans holding instruments, this makes them angry so they lash out by playing metal again. The term psychedelic black metal has been tossed around in the past, I think this song is the definition. While they are going above and beyond in the making of this album I would not recommend doing anything stronger than a couple of bong hits to it. Some of the chaos can be jarring. 

The album wanders off into some kind of ritual they uncovered, The vocals chant in the incantation of an unearthly pulse with hints of guitar haunting it. Things space out in more abstract sounds that are hard to call songs for the last two tracks I will round this down to an 8, really cool drug music not their best songwriting., This is not out of range of the bulk of the albums I have reviewed by these guys though as it stands  2013'a "Velonielu" is their best album. 

pst527