Oranssi Pazuzu
11PARANOIAS THE DOME, LONDON
FINNISH COSMONAUTS INDUCE A PEAK EXPERIENCE
11PARANOIAS [7] OPEN their set to a lonely vista: the Dome’s cavernous space bordering on tumbleweed territory as a scattering of earlybirds toe the sticky floor and tuck into their first pints of the night. As the riffs pour forth, however, a crowd begins to file slowly in, metalheads gathering like acolytes called to worship at a skull-shaped mountain by an ancient mage playing a single desolate note on a human thigh bone. Frontman Adam Richardson locks the band in place with tarry bass notes and Ozzydown-a-well vocals as guitarist Mike Vest, elbows politely tucked in, quietly writhes while rooted to the spot, the band smearing the greasy boundaries between vast, drugshitted doom and bleary-eyed Hawkwind veneration. If 11Paranoias cast the runes then ORANSSI PAZUZU
[9] fulfil the prophecy, the five mild-mannered Finns setting something in motion that seems to have cosmic significance. While ostensibly a black metal act, the band ply something far more experimental than Darkthrone worship, touching base with Can, Faust and Silver Apples as they slip between genres and tinker with the very warp and weft of time, space and human consciousness. True, it’s undeniably heavy, but while frontman Jun-His’s shrieking face threatens to fold in on itself his bandmates are at work conjuring something swirlingly elegant and ensuring his howled-up lungs serve as further slimy texture for their kaleidoscopic vision.
From the threatening lunge of Vino Verso to the nuanced headfuck of Lahja – one of many highpoints from 2016’s extraordinary Värähtelijä full-length – the band demonstrate not just extraordinary power, but also a unique unity of vision. Each member appears wholly immersed in a strange little bubble of his own creation, yet remains in tune with the wider hive mind: guitarist Moit skips barefoot between a flickering bank of FX pedals, EviL (yes, really) invokes whirling synth patterns and bassist Ontto, sporting an Eraserhead patch on his dapper suit jacket, wrings the life from his Rickenbacker before kneeling penitently at the foot of a teetering menhir of amplifiers. The cumulative effect is dizzying, imbuing the songs with a strange, elastic quality that makes them seem never-ending while at the same time all too brief. By the time the quintet are dragging their final song to its hymnal climax, every head in the nowpacked room is shaking raptly in unison, and with the sun at its highest point on the day of the summer solstice you can’t help but wonder whether there might be some deep, deep magick at work here. All hail Oranssi Pazuzu!