Oranssi Pazuzu – Muuntautuja Album Review (AOTM October)

Muuntautuja grabs you by the throat, gently tracing it as your pulse quickens. You feel its fingers pressing against your veins, amplifying the rhythm until it becomes impossible to ignore. This sensation is both thrilling and a bit terrifying. How much of this can I take? Just as things seem to swell into uncharted territory, order is restored, and you can finally breathe again.

Muutaantuja marks Oranssi Pazuzu’s sixth album, and the band has certainly not stagnated; they continue to evolve, breathing life into their music with inventive new elements. This album possibly embodies the highest dose of electronic and psychedelic influences they’ve ever woven together. At times, you might feel as if you’re immersed in the dark trip-hop textures of Massive Attack or Tricky, only to be jolted by the band’s signature black metal-infused, raw vocals.

Oranssi Pazuzu’s innovation is awe-inspiring. The soundscape is incredibly fine and beautiful, filled with magnificent details that emerge with each listen, yet it remains raw, violent, and terrifying at the same time. The balance between psychedelia, black metal, post-metal, and trip-hop is a breathtaking. Muutaantuja is an album best experienced in full sessions rather than through isolated tracks.

One highlight of the album is Voitelu which is an astonishing, hypnotic masterpiece that begs to be heard live, with pounding bass drums and basslines that would shake your heart into arrhythmia. Amidst all the madness, a surprisingly delicate piano emerges, creating a sublime contrast. Muuntautuja can be heavy in every sense of the word—such as at the end of Voitelu or the intense start of Valotus—but, in a strange way, it also manages to feel heavy even when the soundscape is not conventionally dense. This ability to craft worlds and atmospheres speaks to the band’s exceptional talent, a feat few can match.

Release Date: October 11, 2024

Oranssi Pazuzu – Muuntautuja

Album of the Month by Cuberat