Oranssi Pazuzu – Muuntautuja Review

It’s hard to believe that it’s been over 15 years since Oranssi Pazuzu delivered their dynamite debut Muukalainen puhuu, because never in the years since has it failed to feel fresh, nor has the band ceased their exploration or dedication to being profoundly out there. No one has managed to catch up to that record, nevermind the brilliant material they’ve put out in its wake. They were and remain a singular act, unwaveringly focused on being dark, weird, and just plain cooler than the deepest reaches of space.

It also gives a guy a certain amount of faith in humanity that a band as completely outré as Oranssi Pazuzu can capture the heavy metal zeitgeist in an era when it’s mostly safer bands gaining traction. People want to get freaky; they just have to be given the chance. The band’s music, their [very deep breath]… black metal-via-kosmische-via-prog-via-post punk-via David Lynch fever dream-via-industrial-via-trip hop-via-the artsy episodes of Star Trek-via-psychedelia… has been one hell of a great chance. Of course, it helps when a band puts out albums as staggeringly great as Valonielu and Värähtelijä (and the rest). Oranssi Pazuzu isn’t just operating at another level in terms of quality; they’re at another level in terms of their inability to sit still, to the point that their previous album Mestarin kynsi proved a mite divisive among the Last Rites crew likely due to an increased focus on abstract mood and vibe. Still, no matter one’s opinion of it (I love it), no one accused the band of resting on their considerable laurels. They were in motion.

Their sixth album, Muuntautuja, carries that same we-aren’t-sitting-still-even-a-little quality, but stretches the band’s stylistic tentacles even farther in various directions. But it’s also a more immediate listen than its predecessor, which, considering the band, doesn’t exactly make it pop radio. If Mestarin kynsi saw Oranssi Pazuzu further distancing their relationship with conventional song structures, Muuntautuja reins in the abstraction just so and provides an incredibly deep experience for an album that’s only about 43 minutes long (their shortest to date).

It’s also an ungodly freakout and at times a total party. The dark material is the darkest they’ve ever done; the dancy stuff will move your caboose like never before; the krautrock tendency to live within a mood remains, this time with more layering in ways that often surprise; and the coolness, well, if you’ve been into this band in the past in a somewhat superficial way (maybe you never quite unlocked the mystic secrets of Larks’ Tongues in Aspic), well, you’ll still find plenty of the strangest and most alien hooks you can imagine. The only aspect of their sound that Oranssi Pazuzu didn’t amplify here is the black metal—other than the vocals, they’ve never been farther from the corpsepainted mobs.

One of this band’s greatest traits is the ability to sound both like an ensemble that really jams naturally together while also releasing records that are clearly meticulously crafted down to every last bleep and bloop. Opener “Bioalkemisti,” for example, carries an almost post hardcore or noise rock level of group dynamics, especially as it emerges from a super aggressive (but very hip-stimulating) drive into the type of noisy, textured impacts that give the loudest My Bloody Valentine moments a run for their money. But the way the vocals often seem to be coming from behind some sort of strange membrane, or how eerie sounds are layered to affect the mood? Doctoral-level effects trickery at its best.

That ability to layer mood, or even the perception of what exact mood is being communicated, runs through every second of Muuntautuja. Nowhere is it more apparent than when the piano manages to cut through the cacophony in the most wonderfully disruptive ways possible. “Voitelu” sees the band pounding down another great drive (this time with the bass going all rubbery), but when the piano emerges, it instantly demands attention no matter how manic and intense the underlying music has become (which is pretty intense, especially the rabid vocals). The effect is even more pronounced in “Valotus,” which is often the heaviest and most aggressive track here, but it also turns the idea on its head. When the piano is providing lithe little melodies over the rhythmic trickery and buzzing guitars, the effect is as it was in “Voitelu”—a refocus of the listener’s mood within the song. However, when it’s just piano over very quiet sounds, it gets downright creepy, and provides a great table-setting for the song’s hammering, ultimately distorted finish.

While every track on Muuntautuja is quite dynamic, the album doesn’t have a song that goes as far with a “cinematic” scope as some Oranssi Pazuzu has written in the past; think Valonielu’s closing “Ympyrä on viiva tomussa” or Värähtelijä’s gargantuan “Vasemman käden hierarkia.” Or rather, the material here is not as obviously cinematic as those songs; it’s still easy to hear much of this through the lens of a soundtrack. This is surely by design, as Muuntautuja seems to want the listener to form their own relationship with the music rather than being directed by the bombast.

(A quick aside: I kept thinking of Radiohead’s Kid A and Amnesiac while working on this review. Both Mestarin kynsi and Muuntautuja seem to represent the moment in which Oranssi Pazuzu placed an extra level of faith in their fans the way Radiohead did all those years ago, not to mention the heightened emphasis on exploration.)

Penultimate (and longest) track “Ikikäärme” exemplifies this quality, growing from soft drums and softer piano all the way to huge explosions (the Neurosis rule of big swells and even bigger hits). But it’s the things in between those impacts ‒ those ever-important details ‒ that will pique your curiosity as you come back over and over. Maybe it’s the pulsating throbs, a super spooky guitar melody, or the distorted singing. Maybe it’s how all the instruments combine to create a horn effect during the song’s biggest moments or how the vocals are at peak nastiness during these parts. Everyone is going to find different details, touches, and quick moments that provide their individual hooks—such is the nature of music with a high level of both aural detail and emotional depth.

Two parts of the song also provide key insight into the overall vibe of Muuntautuja. The first is that aforementioned spooky guitar part, and the second is the song’s quieter, almost serene finish. Muuntautuja is a dark record—it’s plenty dancy and catchy, yes, but it’s also supremely dark. However, no matter how eerie, alien, distant, and/or downright creepy it may become, it never feels threatening. If anything, like the resolution of “Ikikäärme,” much of the album is strangely welcoming, as if the band wants you to join them in this party they’ve set up in some unknowable interstellar abyss. Or something like that. Oranssi Pazuzu naturally invites metaphors, but no metaphors quite capture their particular… essence? That seems right enough. Essence. Go with it.

All of these details and descriptions and attempts at musical metaphor are all well and good, but perhaps the most important thing one can say about Muuntautuja is that it continues Oranssi Pazuzu’s flawless streak of just being impossibly cool. This is music you want to hear over and over. It’s music you want to share, often with people that might not typically like the extreme metal ingredients. This is in spite of the fact that this and every Oranssi Pazuzu album brings with it a bit of a learning curve, because it’s always a welcoming learning curve based on the listener’s particular sense of curiosity and the band’s ability to write deep cosmic hooks. Even if you love Muuntautuja instantly, you’ll still be unraveling its secrets on your 25th listen. This band understands the value of depth, and as such possesses the type of magnetism that can’t really be taught.

If it hasn’t already been made abundantly clear, this album is unsurprisingly another big win for one of the most exciting bands in extreme music.