Last night I saw Sigh, Imperial Triumphant, and Oranssi Pazuzu live at Backstage in Munich with my girlfriend. I’ve been listening to Oranssi Pazuzu since about 2016 and saw them live in 2022 in Bolwerk (Sneek, the Netherlands) with my brother. The Finnish band, while admittedly niche, is know for a “special blend” of black metal and post-rock. Their albums are centered around seemingly simple themes: being drawn into a black hole, being alone in space, insidious propaganda in a big city. The themes are primarily explored sonically; I don’t speak Finnish (and if someone can understand the lyrics without reading along, count me impressed), but the vocals are mostly another instrument that sit in the mid-high regions of the soundscapes. And that’s what the band excels at: soundscapes. Songs can last for 17 minutes, recurring themes can resurface minutes apart, and all while the band is playing with tension and texture. On the albums, it’s mainly the hypnotic grooves, but in real life, it’s a physical wall of sound. The beauty of their live experience is that the sound mix is extremely impressive: while your clothes are vibrating due to the bass, you can still make out high-pitched synthesizers, the howling vocals, and even individual chords.
The show in 2022 was in a small club with maybe 100 people there. You could feel the sound waves resonating up and down the room. This time the venue was quite a bit bigger. The first act was Sigh, who I had never heard of. They played melodic (and quite theatrical) metal with some experimental aspects (here and there some flutes). I enjoyed it, but it was not necessarily my taste. The (I assume) daughter of some of the members was a little “mascot” on stage: big ear protection and throwing devil horns; cute and the audience loved it. I was a bit worried about the sound since the mix was a bit flat and not very loud. This worry was gone when the second act rolled around: Imperial Triumphant. I did look them up a couple times before and their name rang familiar when I saw them listed.
Everything about Imperial Triumphant is highly technical: the playing, the melodies, the tempo switches, the effects (especially the bass). I’d bet good money they are highly schooled musicians given their playing, the drummer even switched between matched and traditional grip for their more jazzy moments. And that’s another unique aspect of the band: the mixing of styles. They effortlessly switch between black metal, jazz, and even some groove-inspired metal. Tension is built with desolate soundscapes from the guitarist, but especially the bassist. The way he makes the bass scream is something I haven’t seen before, and while their techniques are very different, the sheer creativity reminded me of Les Claypool at times. It was a very enjoyable show, going up in volume and down in theatrics compared to the first act.
This trend continued with Oranssi Pazuzu: no theatrics and even more volume. The band makes liberal use of synthesizers, but perhaps not in the way you’d think (à la Amorphis). The synths are there to “fill” the soundscape, at the high-end, but especially the low-end. Not every song uses droning low synths, the bass also serves that purpose of course, but when the synths hit, they hit hard. This is also why the mixing plays such an important role: the synth (or heavily distorted bass for that matter) could easily drown out everything else. But no, everything is precise and clear, from the wails of the keyboardist, to the strumming of the guitars, and even the lead vocals cut through very effectively. Similarly to the albums, the vocals are bit back in the mix, but that’s the point (remember the themes; clear and upfront vocals don’t really fit here). This “slightly back in the mix” is not easy with such extremely loud music, but, again, they pulled it off. There were two “armageddon” moments (à la MBV, but not lasting half an hour of course), which were well deserved with proper buildup and tension release (Imperial Triumphant also had one or two, but with noticeably different approaches). My personal highlight was hearing Vasemman käden hierarkia live (yes I had to copy paste that). This is the 17 minute song with a long reoccurring groove I allude to earlier. They played this last and it was incredibly effective, the bass riff that kicks in at 8 minute mark made my clothes vibrate, but you could still make out the individual chords (?) the bassist was playing.
If you like long grooves, hellish and meticulous soundscapes, or just don’t mind a little experimentation in your metal, I highly recommend seeing Oranssi Pazuzu live. Both in 2022 and this time around, I was impressed and the guys delivered a unique experience. There were noticeably more people now compared to in 2022 (maybe 300), this might be due to increased popularity, the location, or because the show was part of free event (I did buy tickets to make sure we’d get in and you got some drinks). Still, people were highly invested and the room was full, which is not a given with extremely high volume levels and songs that require long attention spans. Sigh and Imperial Triumphant were also nice surprises, I will look into them more.
All in all a great evening, and what’s more: this was my girlfriends first concert! Quite the line-up to start with, but she really enjoyed it. The size of the venue and the progression from theatrics and volume from act to act were well suited for getting used to the (metal) concert experience. More to follow…