Style: psychedelic sludge metal (harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Oranssi Pazuzu, Dark Buddha Rising
Review by: Matt
Country: Finland
Release date: 5 April 2019
[EDITOR’S NOTE: This review was originally published in the April 2019 issue of The Progressive Subway.]
Here we have a serious contender for “best band name of all time.” Waste of Space Orchestra is a collaboration between two established bands, Oranssi Pazuzu and Dark Buddha Rising, neither of whom I was familiar with beforehand. The resulting album makes me want to fix that, though, as it’s a pretty fascinating piece of work.
At its heart, Syntheosis is basically a psychedelic sludge album, although it’s strange enough that the community has deemed it “avant-garde.” You can hear traces of doom metal, black metal, straight ambient parts, and even epic keyboard melodies that remain stubbornly un-diatonic. The drums alternate between plodding and Neurosis-esque tribal grooves, and the band isn’t afraid to play fast from time to time either. They strike a good balance between repetitive immersion and doing stuff; the one constant is that it always sounds discomforting.
This project sports 10 members, although the songs could mostly be replicated by a standard five-piece. There’s three singers, with the best by far being Marko Neuman (I was 100% sure it was a woman… Baffling.) He brings an incredible intensity to Wake up the Possessor, the album highlight for me. On the other hand, the guy on the first song sounds like a pissed-off villain from a Saturday morning cartoon. As for the other performances, there’s nothing technical to marvel at, but I appreciate how much lead work and keyboard texturing there is. It keeps the droning stuff from getting boring.
The only dull moment comes towards the end, where they stuck the weakest song (Vacuum Head) in the middle of twelve minutes of ambience. I actually like the ambient tracks – The Universal Eye sounds like it could’ve been done by Erik Wollo – but the sequencing is a slog.
You probably already know if you want to check this out – obviously, if you’re a fan of the composite bands, but also if you like sludge or general horrific noise. It works for me in particular because there’s just enough there to grab onto besides dissonance.
Recommended tracks: Journey to the Center of Mass, Wake up the Possessor
You may also like: yeah uhh dunno about this one
Final verdict: 7/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Label: Svart Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website
Waste of Space Orchestra is:
– Marko Neuman (vocals as The Possessor)
– Juho Vanhanen (guitars, vocals as The Seeker)
– Vesa Ajomo (guitars, vocals as The Shaman)
– Ville Leppilahti (keyboards, effects)
– Jussi Saarivuori (electronics)
– Toni Hietamäki (bass)
– Petri Rämänen (bass)
– Jukka Rämänen (drums)
– Jukka Rämänen (drums)
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