Haunted Plasma
I

The Finnish supergroup is unclassifiable, and it's precisely what makes the debut album so exciting. The journey begins with the album's cover artwork, which seems to literally draw you inward in a whirlpool, with its unnatural-looking light, like a Dantean inferno or the mouth of a giant blast furnace. Spectral gothic industrial? I don't know. And who cares. Juho Vanhanen from Oranssi Pazuzu, Timo Kaukolampi from K-X-P, Tomi Leppänen from Circle, are all people not exactly known for basic music, devoid of layered and additional sound elements. The creative mind of Hexvessel, Mat McNerney, is the guest singer on the first two tracks of the album.

Reversed Engineer starts slowly and darkly, haunting and whispered voices dominate the first few minutes of the song, and it encloses the gothic and dark vibes of the '80s within it. In Machines Like Us, industrial elements are clearly present, guitarist Juho Vanhanen describes the song as a conflicting vision of a machine that must harmonize with human consciousness. The retro-futuristic gothic vibes are markedly present. Spectral Embrace is more skeletal with robotic voices dominating the first part before a resonant melody is engulfed by the foreground voices.

Echoes completely eradicates any sense of excitement or unease, the slow and heavy sound penetrates completely into consciousness. Closing your eyes, the trance increases and envelopes the brain matter. The sound is hypnotic, the voices are in the background, allowing the rest of the sound the opportunity to unfold into a cocoon of mysterious harmonies.

The curtain for this journey into the unknown is the eponymous closing track, Haunted Plasma, which, at nearly 13 minutes, is by far the longest track of the Finnish work. The rhythmic soundscape is a fluid motorik, we are transported to a place where delicate notes and voices convey a sense of wonder. The futurcosmic musical elements increase significantly as the piece progresses, in a swirl of catalytic and dreamy sounds that drag you ever deeper into the band's layered cosmos, interspersed with large arches full of pathos and suspense.

An album based on krautrock, EBM electronics, dark ambient, with splashes of black metal, it is also open to adventurous metalheads who might appreciate it. Multilayered and compelling, surely at ease in an otherworldly atmosphere. In my opinion, it takes several journeys through their desolate cybernetic landscape aboard your personal spacecraft to appreciate its very personal and unique musical flavor. Haunted Plasma are energizing masters, pure, and servants of their own music.

Fueled up your spacecraft?