Known thus far in North America only to the most attentive and adventurous of black metal fans, Finland's Oranssi Pazuzu has now channelled 'Valonielu', their first album on a U.S. based label (third overall), to legions of fellow travelers seeking transcendence. The band name, a combination of the Finnish word Oranssi, which means orange and for the band symbolizes "cosmic energy", and Pazuzu, a "mythic demon of the wind", conjures perfectly the band's unequaled, singular take on Psychedelic Cosmic Black Metal; celestial and boundless but malevolently grim and harsh. Oranssi Pazuzu's second album "Kosmonument" released by Spinefarm Records was received with great critical acclaim as a brilliant album by a band developing into something all their own. On "Valonielu" O.P. has sharpened their songcraft into a more succinct and salient statement, formidably invoking 90s era Darkthrone, yet boldly reaching farther out into the multiverse of the Psych and ExperiMental side they have always inhabited. From the beginning chainsaw riff of album opener "Vino Verso" ("Askew Sprout") to the climactic, world downfall of final track "Ympyra On Viiva Tomussa" ("A Circle Is A Line In The Dust"), O.P. masterfully establish a cosmology all their own. Having found a new home on Svart Records in Europe and 20 Buck Spin in North America, Oranssi Pazuzu breathe ascendent new life into an often stagnant present day Black Metal scene. With "Valonieulu" the band offers not a sleepy pale grey shoegaze record masquerading as Black Metal, but a vibrant, colorful cataclysm of Psych, Space Rock and Black Metal that cannot be easily categorized as any one particular genre or any single influence. An exceptional release by any measure, Oranssi Pazuzu are now certain to rise to an elevated position within the modern music landscape.
