Oranssi Pazuzu - Muuntautuja (2024)^{Release ID: 55343}

While my initial experiences with Oranssi Pazuzu certainly showed some promise, I think it’s fair to say that I’ve been blown away by just how far the Finnish extreme metal act have taken their sound over the course of their eighteen-year existence to date. They were clearly always one of the more ambitious black metal artists in the scene, even going right back to their 2009 debut album “Muukalainen puhuu” which already displayed some of the psychedelic attributes that the band would build their reputation on, but that doesn’t really prepare you for what’s in store for you on the last couple of Oranssi Pazuzu albums because they’re a completely different animal these days. My early experiences with their debut saw me marking the Fins as a band to keep my eye on & I’ve kept up that commitment in all the years since. While I struggled a little with their 2011 “Kosmonument” sophomore record, things started to take a steep upward trajectory with 2013’s “Valonielu” before hitting an incredible creative peak in 2016 which is still showing no signs of relinquishing its hold on me. The “Värähtelijä” & “Mestarin kynsi” albums were utterly sublime, particularly the latter which I now regard as one of the most perfect metal releases ever recorded. 2017’s “Farmakologinen” E.P. was also brilliant & I got a great deal of enjoyment out of the “Live at Roadburn” live album too so it’s not terribly surprising that I’ve maintained a huge level of anticipation for Oranssi Pazuzu’s brand-new sixth full-length “Muuntautuja”, a release that's been a long four years in the making. That faith has been rewarded too as Oranssi Pazuzu’s latest effort is another triumph for the Finnish group.

“Muuntautuja” represents Oranssi Pazuzu’s second album for well-known German label Nuclear Blast & would see them once again collaborating with Julius Mauranen who produced “Mestarin kynsi”, this time handling the majority of the production duties themselves. The resulting record is another masterstroke of class & creativity that further blurs the boundaries of the black metal genre. In fact, I’m gonna have to suggest that, not only have Oranssi Pazuzu finally done away with black metal as an instrumental tool (they arguably had on the last couple of albums to be fair), but they’ve actually transcended metal music in general with the vast majority of “Muuntautuja” exploring a vastly more expansive palate of musical influences. While my take on both “Värähtelijä” & “Mestrin kynsi” was to label them as blackened post-metal, “Muuntautuja” draws upon a wide variety of noise rock, trip hop, dark ambient & progressive electronic sounds for inspiration, often in unusual ways too. It’s only the imposingly dark black metal shrieks of guitarist Juho Vanhanen (Atomikylä/Grave Pleasures/Haunted Plasma/Waste of Space Orchestra/Kuolleet Intiaanit) that remind the listener that they’re actually listening to a product of the extreme metal scene but they’re brutal enough to maintain the metal link for the time being in my opinion & I think, when taken as an holistic piece of art, the best tag for a record like “Muuntautuja” is probably avant-garde black metal. The last couple of Oranssi Pazuzu records have seen people (incorrectly in my opinion) wanting to utilize that avant-garde metal tag but this time I feel that it’s genuinely warranted.

As for who has provided the musical inspiration for a record like “Muuntautuja”, I don’t think the album does much to hide the Oranssi Pazuzu’s influences. The driving & repetitive rhythms come fueled by a noisy aesthetic that’s been borrowed from artists like Sonic Youth, Death Grips & My Bloody Valentine with the electronic beats & basslines have clearly come from the Bristol trip hop scene that spawned incredibly creative acts such as Portishead & Massive Attack, two of my favourite artists of all time. The most significant influence I pick up though, & one that I haven’t seen mentioned anywhere to date, is that of Radiohead’s more expansive & experimental post-1990’s releases which sees the band playing in spaces that I hold very closely to my own heart given that I also regard Radiohead as one of the most significant bands in my lifetime. It all works splendidly too with the sum of those influences being portrayed in new & exciting ways. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the majority of Oranssi Pazuzu’s lineup have been together since the band’s inception as it’s clearly allowed them to gradually take the indulgent musical journey they have & it’s once again resulted in a fascinating & captivating listen. There's just something about an artist that can soak up a broad array of styles & present them so successfully with their own spin that commands my utmost respect. I think it's something that I recognise as something that I always struggled to achieve personally, too often simply making decent replicas of my favourite records but rarely creating something entirely new that's just as compelling.

The highlights of the album come through the cripplingly savage vocals of Vanhanen & the driving basslines of Toni Hietamäki (Atomikylä/Waste of Space Orchestra) in my opinion but those trip hop beats are also exceptional with keyboardist Ville Leppilahti (Waste of Space Orchestra) doing a wonderful job with the atmospherics. The tracklisting is chock full of spectacular moments too with the vast majority of the record falling into transcendent territory. My picks of the bunch include opener “Bioalkemisti” (my personal favourite), short dark ambient interlude “.”, repetitive post-metal builder “Ikikäärme” (which I'd suggest falls closest to the last couple of albums in terms of style) & dark progressive electronic closer “Vierivä usva” but there are just so many incredible inclusions in this star-studded lineup of material that I could just as easily have picked belters like “Voitelu” or “Hautatuuli”. This album simply sounds so fresh & new, despite its sources of inspiration largely having been around since the start of this century or earlier & that’s what truly great artists can do. They manage to bring a timelessness to their art that others can only dream of achieving.

As Sonny mentioned in his review, it's a little hard to compare a record like “Muuntautuja” with past glories as it’s so different to anything we've heard before, concurrently challenging the listener from a number of different angles which sees it taking a while to fully sink in. Like him, I think I’m gonna place it slightly behind “Mestarin kynsi” & “Värähtelijä” in the pecking order (at least for the time being) but the gap to the latter isn’t a big one & the fact that I’ve still had to find space in my Top 100 Metal Releases of All Time to cater for “Muuntautuja” should be as strong an indication as any of just how highly I regard Oranssi Pazuzu as an elite artist. This is truly next level stuff from one of the true creative geniuses in the modern scene & it’s only the clear strength of 2024 as a pillar in the metal timeline that has seen it unable to take out top spot in my Album of the Year race.

For fans of A Forest of Stars, Blut Aus Nord & Ved Buens Ende…..

I really don't know how to tag Oranssi Pazuzu anymore. The avant-garde metal tagging assigned to their latest seems a bit of a cop-out for material that sits outside the scope of existing genre understandings, especially as I generally find avant-garde metal to be unlistenable, which this patently is not. But, in reality, I can't currently come up with anything more appropriate. It seems that these Finns are so far ahead of their time that it is questionable if their music is even earth-based anymore, sounding like the kind of stuff I would expect them to be listening to in the more unsavoury areas of the gigantic space orbitals of Iain M. Banks' twenty-fifth century Culture civilization.

The black metal aspect of their sound is merely vestigial at this point, surviving only in the harsh, shrieked vocals and the psychedelic element so prevalent on their last couple of albums is also consigned to history for the most part. I always felt that the psychedelic component gave them a bit of warmth and even hope, but Muuntautuja feels like a more depersonalised and bleak affair. Oranssi Pazuzu have leant heavily into atmospherics for some time now, but here they go even further, taking elements of noise, sludge, electronica and drone to weave tracks that are all about the texture and atmosphere rather than any kind of song and, as such, are far more akin to post-metal than they have been before. Atmospherically, Muuntautuja gives off dystopian sci-fi vibes within a threateningly malevolent industrial landscape, sounding as if influenced by the more pessimistic science fiction writers such as Phillip K. Dick and William Gibson, in whose worlds the overly mechanised "system" oppresses the spirit of those living under it.

The opener "Bioalkemisti" kicks off with a throbbing drum and bass line accompanied by Juho Vanhanen's throat-shredding shrieks and from the very beginning it is evident that things have taken a turn for the darker. Frantic riffing and siren-like synths join the affray and the track becomes more and more apocalyptic and menacing with machine-like industrial stylings that scream "Dystopia". The title track feeds further into this narrative with it's trip-hop beats and spacey electronic embellishments, especially when the robotic spoken word section kicks in early on, dehumanising the atmosphere even more before it explodes in a frustrated-sounding, heavier, sludgy industrial second part. I don't want to do a track-by-track runthrough, but highlight the content of the first two tracks to try to impart some flavour of what to expect from Muuntautuja. The heavier sections are loaded on bass and distortion which pushes the instrumentation in a noise-driven direction, with a favourite trope here being overlaying these heavy sections with a tinkling piano and Juho's manic shrieks. The lighter electronic parts are based on hypnotic, industrialised beats that can occasionally come off as almost ritualistic, as if in praise of some almighty Machine God and I feel that the layering of these heavier and lighter sections is fundamental to the success of the album. Pacing and tempo also varies massively from hulking, sludge and drone-like parts to frantic blasts of unhinged mania that provide further stark contrasts in atmospherics.

Ultimately, no amount of words I can spew on to this page will give you an adequate picture of what Oranssi Pazuzu have served up with Muuntautuja, so you owe it to yourself to fire it up and experience the album firsthand. I must admit I am unsure where to place this in OP's discography. I think it is an endlessly fascinating release that has seen yet another redefinition of the band's sound, but is it better than the amazing Värähtelijä and Mestarin kynsi albums? For the time being I am going to proffer a "no", but that does not by any means infer that I don't like this, because I love it. It's just that I am unsure how much just yet. One thing is for sure, every new Oranssi Pazuzu release is an event worth getting yourself up for.