Album Review: "Värähtelijä" by Oranssi Pazuzu

Värähtelijä

"I like music, but what you're listening to isn't music."

As a fan of metal and rap, that's been said to me by authority figures more times than I can count.

The same has also been said millions of times about works of art. There are are people in this world that feel that art, be it music, film, literature, or photographs, need to fit into a prescribed box they have created for themselves.

What makes something art?

Here at Glacially Musical, we subscribe to the it's art because I say it is philosophy. I'm also rather partial to the idea that it's a work of art if it expresses something or moves the consumer in some way.

Many times here, we'll review an album that your average person won't think is music, but extreme metal is music, but today, I think we're delving into another territory that requires and open mind.

Oranssi Pazuzu

Guitar based music in the world today has come from a single source that has blossomed off into many different styles of music.

That godfather of it all, if you will, was jazz. It then gave way to blues and there we have some splintering.

But what is metal if not the blues?

It's music that conveys negative emotions in order for the artist and listener to relieve them.

Värähtelijä is full of anger and desperation. 

It's heard in the black metal and noise metal screams that sometimes inhabit the music.

This is the kind of album that will inhabit the darkness of the mind. From dissonance, to swirling psychedelia, to terrifying vocals. 

It's largely instrumental and the vocals are sparely used which gives them maximum impact. Do not be expecting Malmsteen or Satriani styled shredding or even Vai influenced melodies. This album hurts and that sort of beauty would be to its detriment.

It's a manifesto of personal pain. 

Release: 2/26/16
Genre: Metal
Label: 20 Buck Spin
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