Oranssi Pazuzu – Värähtelijä (2016)

Making Black Metal trippy with their Doom/Psychedelic influences, Oranssi Pazuzu returns with another brilliant deconstruction of the genre in “Värähtelijä”. Delivering over 60 minutes of madness, this release captures the listener’s attention and imagination since its first riff and never lets go. If you are a fan of the unconventional, this is an album you can’t miss.

The release slowly opens with the atmospheric piece “Saturaatio” that presents us with a powerful guitar onslaught and some trippy keys. The harsh vocals suddenly appear to add an extra level of heaviness to an already very crafty song. Changing the mood into darker and more sinister territories, “Lahja” features a very hypnotic tempo. This track while different than the opener, continues the underlying dark and mysterious atmosphere of this release.

The band’s hypnotic musical stride comes in full bloom on the magical album title track. This bizarre hypnotic piece delivers very ritualistic drums and disturbing vocals paired with droning riffs and a few quirky atmospheric elements. After being hypnotized by the previous track, the band unleashes the fully psychedelic “Hypnotisoitu viharukous”. In this track the band gets even weirder with a brilliant mixture of harsh and clean screams creating a very unsettling mood that is atmospherically complemented by trippy keyboards. There are also plenty BM elements thrown into the mix.

Having warmed up, the band delivers their 17-minute behemoth “Vasemman käden hierarkia”. The bass guitar and drum structure keep things in line with the previous tracks and the whole release in general, but there is some sense of urgency and devastation that wasn’t present until now… and we love it. This track is full of unique atmospheric elements and tempo changes, making it quite unpredictable and totally enjoyable. As “Havuluu” opens with a calmer first few minutes, the band reminds us of a doomier version Angst Skvadron.

Closing on a high note with the excruciatingly punishing atmosphere of the trippy “Valveavaruus”, the band invokes their inner most demons to create a very weird and masterful track. If you like weird Black Metal, we mean like Solefald and Angst Skvadron weird, “Värähtelijä” is one album that has immense replay value. Oranssi Pazuzu continues to pioneer and each of their releases is a unique experience that not everybody will be able to fully digest. For those willing to put the effort, the rewards are plenty and well worth the trip.

Label: Svart Records / 20 Buck Spin

Release: February 26th, 2016

Genre: Psychedelic Black Metal

Country: Finland