Review by Sonny for Oranssi Pazuzu - Mestarin kynsi (2020)

Oranssi Pazuzu follow up the amazing Värähtelijä with this, their latest album and it is indeed a worthy succcessor to that classic. Their stint with the Waste of Space Orchestra project seems to have resulted in ever more diverse influences becoming entwined in their sound, moving them even further away from their black metal origins. In fact, I hear very little black metal on here other than in the vocals. What I do hear is electronica and space rock in hefty doses and the metal that is present owes more to industrial than black metal. The band I keep hearing throughout more than any other though is Hawkwind, particularly of the eighties vintage. The first part of the album's longest track, Uusi Teknokratia, is so reminiscent of Choose Your Masques it's untrue and the driving, wall of sound of the quicker songs married with the electronic elements has Dave Brock's stamp all over it.

Atmospherically, the album is very "cyberpunk dystopia", the soundtrack to a not-so-distant nightmare future envisioned by the likes of William Gibson. Most of the tracks start ominously and build towards an energetic and chaotic climax, conjuring images of marauding androids and flaming attack ships.

This all results in a particularly progressive sounding metal album, in the classic sense, not in the lazy, "desperately-trying-to-sound-like-Dream Theater" sense that many so-called progressive metal bands settle for. The album's several diverse elements are all brought together into a whole that visionaries of yesteryear like Robert Fripp and Peter Hammill would be proud of had they come from a later era of music and been more metal-inclined. Oranssi Pazuzu are cut from a similar cloth and are one of the select few bands in the metal scene who can be considered leaders and not followers.

For now I've got this marked down slightly from Värähtelijä, but this is a great record too and that divergence may yet close as this gets more listens (as it certainly will!)