Oranssi Pazuzu, Valonielu, Svart Records, CD SVR 226 (2013)
This Finnish five-piece is on its third journey through the psych black metal cosmos and reaching out to the very edges of the known universe and possibly beyond, as suggested by the album cover art which might (just might – I’m guessing wildly here) have been inspired by the style of famous 1960s comic-strip writer and artist Robert Crumb. “Valonielu” is a very confident work refining the style set by debut recording and album “Muukalainen Puhuu” which was a real humdinger for its enthusiastic and colourful if sometimes demented music. Our citrus-loving demons wisely don’t try to top that album in excess but nevertheless the ride here is as mind-blowing and expansive in its own way.
The opening track is a tough rocker dominated by Jun-His’s inhuman croaking vocals barking in deranged Finnish while droning synths and effects heighten the sense of unreality and the impression that chaos and other dreamworlds are just a breath away. The psychedelic space journey proper really launches with the next track “Tyhja Temppeli” (“The Empty Temple”) with a thumping percussion accompanied by squiggly guitar chords, flashes of guitar tone and synth wash. Tension and suspense created within the song builds up. The band opts for a more relaxed, spacey, trippy ambient approach with “Uraanisula” rather than continue with the near-hysterical escalation of foreboding generated on the preceding song but “Uraanisula” has its own sinister charms, especially in those instrumental passages where guitar solo competes with ascending and descending space gurgle noises. It’s a fairly long track but with a riff that more or less runs right through its length, the song is distinct with a strong focus and direction.
There’s time for a breather and a look around the alien vistas with “Reika Maisemassa” (“A Hole in the Landscape”), a trippy little instrumental with tribal-sounding drumming and a sense of wonder and awe. The difficult second half of the album – this is where filler is most likely to be found – is negotiated well before “Ympyra On Viiva Tomussa” (“A Circle Is A Line In The Dust”), a monster track of atmospheric trance immersion, blackened rock-out glory and mind-blowing consciousness-altering space psychedelia, takes us on the final lap around the edges of the cosmos, always on the verge of falling right off and over into another (and perhaps more malevolent) universe. A war to dominate our minds is waged between a battery of tremolo guitars and death rays of while Jun-His sings over the battle. The sound is evil as though the forces of darkness are winning and the spacecraft carrying us listeners is doomed to fall into black void forever.
What makes this blackened psychedelic trance record stand out is a calculated attitude that drips with evil intent; the voyage to the stars and far beyond is a one-way journey into a cosmos that is indifferent and maybe even antagonistic and hostile towards those humans who dare to forget their place at the bottom of the cosmic hierarchy and venture out from their Earth prison. The album’s energy and focus are directed towards dropping us all into emptiness: the answer to humankind’s quest for meaning to life. As cosmic jokes go, this is devastating and “Valonielu” might serve as a warning to us all about human hubris. Whereas on the band’s first album, interstellar travel was fun, now on this trip the fun has been replaced by uncertainty and foreboding that we might be in for an unpleasant shock.
While the first half of the album is a tease with songs going off on different tangents from previous tracks, the second half pulls the strands together and from then on the ultimate aim is imminent. Early tracks can stand alone as potential singles (due to one riff or melody dominating throughout) which might explain why as a group they don’t seem unified and a bit of momentum is lost from one track to the next. The musicians keep monotony at bay with synthesiser melodies, atmospheric wash and effects which help give songs their distinct ambience and identities.
The whole recording works like a horror sci-fi movie in sound: all that’s needed are the visual backgrounds and maybe some stills of actors, and we’ve got ourselves a complete package.
Contact: Svart Records
Cover art: more R Dean than R Crumb. Roger Dean’s album cover pics are inextricably associated with pop culture dominance of prog rock, at a period when it was just about to be upstaged by punk. For my money though, the best record Dean ever did a cover for was Osibisa’s first LP. Luckily the music was a lot better than Dean’s illustration. No such comparisons are quite so apt for Crumb. He joked that one of the two things he’s best remembered for is his cover for Big Brother and the Holding Company debut album. If that was all the music-themed work he’d done, he may not be so well remembered. One strand of his output was steeped in country blues. Acid didn’t pass Crumb by but he never became a proponent of psychedelic music.
@ Reginald Side: I see what you mean when you say the cover art is more Roger Dean than Robert Crumb; the subject matter certainly and the context of the art, being for an album that features music inspired by psychedelia, would suggest Dean as an inspiration. I had in mind though the style of the illustration, the colours used, the muted lines and the intimate, inviting look of the work. I’m not very familiar with Dean’s work but I’ve seen some of it – well, nearly everyone has seen some of it in the James Cameron flick “Avatar” – and to my mind it has a remote quality at odds with the inclusive spirit of psychedelia.
I want to commend the artworks of Costin Alexandru Chioreanu, the Romanian artist who drew this cover. One of his declared early influences was Heavy Metal magazine; rather than Roger Dean (or Robert Crumb), I’m more inclined to look for resonances with the French artist Philippe Druillet, although Druillet originally appeared in Metal-Hurlant (Heavy Metal was the Americanised, more commercial version of this radical French magazine of comic art).
Chioreanu has a musical career of his own too, as a member of Nightpray, Kandaon, and Bloodway.