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*Comments:

1.  Sienipilvi
2.  Komeetta
3.  Uusi olento nousee
4.  Luhistuva aikahäkki
5.  Maavaltimo
6.  Siirtorata 100 10100
7.  Andromeda
8.  Loputon tuntematon
9.  Kaaos hallitsee
10.  8

Total playing time:  1:06:13

Release Date: October 26, 2011
Label: Spinefarm Records

Oranssi Pazuzu - Kosmonument

Reviewer: Chris

January 12, 2012

Like the score to a sinister thriller film, Kosmonument from Oranssi Pazuzu seeps into the caverns of closed rooms within and hangs over the place like a thick foggy epitaph. Whereas Finland will always be the home of Nightwish and the practical birthplace for ‘gothic opera rock’, it’s pleasant to see something avante garde like this wrestle out from under the supposition.

For being deemed ‘psychedelic black metal’ the mind might tend to wander all over as to what this sound could possibly infer. We already have the post-rock movement calling itself shoegaze, which might suggest Mazzy Star-meeting-black metal is a tempestuous couple, but this is infinitely more engaging with this record. There is a definitive line that has been successfully blurred between artsy rock and black metal, though the former takes precedence in the equation. I hear no trace of Pink Floyd of King Crmson, the two renowned kings of psychedelic music for the masses, but there is certainly a visage created that even Opeth missed in its vain attempt at such reverence.

I do believe the only ‘blackened’ element of this music here is the vocal, a raspy harshness that is part-and-parcel with al black metal as a whole. Other than that, the comparison might yield to otherwise spacey type of issuance. “Uusi olento nousee” might give way to the black metal sound with some industrial flavoring for measure, but it’s also quite lush with tonal subservience to the psych mark it was courting. As you’re becoming enveloped in the music, which shifts on a dime to yet another direction, you find yourself acclimating to it rather than it to you and your mood or state of mind. To say a record has everything might be a vast understatement; doom, black, industrial, psychedelic, all of these genres reside in this hour-long collective of music and sounds that will no doubt trip you out and tap your inner cosmos. “Luhistuva aikahäkki” is one of the best tracks on the album due in large part to its gentle chaos that simply pollutes the mind with eerie and encapsulating feelings of frightful uncertainty. It’s a track like this that makes an entire album all the more digestible in one sitting and really finds the mark. The music, simply put, seems to take on this life of its own and ascend slowly, then drop like a weighted bag of chains as is evident when “Maavaltimo” sort of crushes the mental pictures you’ve created with its preceding track. All and over, this is one powerful album that actually says something without needing to belabor the point with trite nuances and uneven or directionless music.

With as many detours and sonic eclipsing as Oranssi Pazuzu manages in Kosmonument it’s a wonder this band hasn’t broken through at a grander scale. Perhaps the simplistic fringe fan boys simply can’t ingest a band of such tangible magnitude yet. Shame on them.