brandkommando is a project of Karol Wachowski (Karol W.) from Poland, whose creation's the main character is harsh noise sounds. The new album "Love forever" consists of seven unlike and alike tracks at the same time. 'Love' theme develops in one straight dark way, but with different branches of powerful noise. The first song is Wspomnienie. The name can be translated like 'Remembrance'. The track begins heavily like an idea to remember something and then this feeling grips you into toothed wheel of noisy sounds with specific rhythm. You feel, that you can't escape, just to surrender of thinking, but this turning mechanism of remembrance suddenly throws you away. And in the middle of this creation run ringing sounds, they trob anxiously and sling back into this troublesome process. The similar sounds repeat at the beginning and in the end, but more powerful. The second track Massmord has more solid rhythm during all song. The name of track can be interpreted as the meaning of mass - what is the mass and what are the feelings in the mass. There is the main assaulter rhythm and various circumjacent noises, which are trying to bite you all the time. In the end these sounds progress and become into one big mass. Elaborat Psuedofilozoficzny- elaborate talking, but this talk is not real talk, just maybe a form of verbal talking. There talk noises, which sometimes are very similar to poeple's talk in daily life. There is one rhythm, which is like martial beat or a beat of heart, then people want to talk and say their own individual opinnion, and then it is exciting. This rhythm repeats several times during track, but you can hear and the different, but more less loud rhythmical noises. But this one twitches and stops maybe to start again. The similar rhythm of martial beat, like in the third track, repeats in Love Forever creation. But it grows into sounds like helicopter's fly or they are both at the same time. They become more and more loud and attack you, your subliminal mind. And then bursts another attack of unknown, daunting sounds, which remaind a voiceful roar. You can have after that a bit of time to have rest and then this angry voice returns in the end of track and you can imagine what is 'love forever'. In Ofirara and Tortured sounds try to make inroads into all structure of human. Dead noise appeals to material body, penetrating -- to mental sphere. You can feel tortured victim. And really dead you can feel in Slaughter track. Pulsatile rhythm, harsh noises and wicked voice make imagine how one big force destroy everything around inside and outside. Some names of tracks are in English, some in Polish languages -- variety for eyes and feel of nationalism. Cover of album is natural, it's hand maded, and remaids a post cover, like a letter, a letter to your subliminal mind. Lenght of all seven tracks is ten and more minutes, structure is almost similar -- attacking noises make progress, more powerful in the end and they don't want to leave you easily. There are the same aggresive sounds, noises, rhythms, which repeat in all creations. It is deep and dark journey into peoples' black, chaotic inner side and similar feelings. You must be strong and to prepare for it and not be scared of that and finaly get with your dark side. At the end is the question - is these feelings love? Are these feelings, which you can't put off, which make you suffer, which kill you are indeed unlovable? Maybe this dark side of love is pleasant for human's being and can't be remove and will exist forever. Demetrija / Heathen Harvest
During the last years a small community of musicians and labels in Poland have come into existence, who are creating dissonate sonic sculptures in the tradition of bands/musicians like Whitehouse, Non, Merzbow or Slogun. Some call this music power electronics or harsh noise, but at least it's original industrial music and not this kind of fake shit like Ministry f.e., who are called industrial just because they've integrated a few weird sounds into their rock music. Well, anyway, I won't abuse this review for a history lesseon in music and so I better focus my attention on the latest release of BRANDKOMMANDO, a Polish one-man unit who is not really unknown in the power noise underground. This album has been released in 2007 on the Japanese avantgarde label Deserted Factory and 'Love Forever' consits of seven songs. Song titles like 'Massmord', 'Tortured' or 'Slaugheter' give a small hint that this album is not really about love but more about the dark sides of the human nature. The music is as uncomfortable as the song-titles, and everyone who's not into this kind of sound will be forced to push the stop-button after the first song. All those who are into the above mentioned groups will love this album. Heavy soundwaves with a hefty distortion unfold an intensive and uncomfortable drone and sometimes a subtle rhythm creeps through this textures. 'Elaborat Pseudofilozoficzny' is accompanied by martial and monotonous percussion, while a track like 'Tortured' showcases BRANDKOMMANDO from an extreme aggressive side. At times a heavy distorted voice is breaking through the massive sound, but almost the complete album is instrumental. What all songs have in common is the fact that they're very hypnotic and kaleidoscopic, due to different integrated sounds. 'Love Forever' is dynamic, sinister and varied listening experience with songs that are mostly about the ten minutes mark. Wrapped up in an unusual cover artwork the new album of BRANDKOMMANDO offer more than just pure noise, especially when you're not only a casual listener. This is really mind-altering music. KK / Cosmic Lava
Brandkommando, from Poland, makes quite traditional power electronics with a somewhat thin sound. The pace of the material quite slow, and carefully developing. It stands out in the crowd of other works in the same genre, for both good and ill, due to its original use of vocals. At most times, there's very little human voice in the mix, and it functions notably well as an equal part of the sound layers. Yet at times the vocals are given reign over all of the material, which mostly leads to just fart humor -level chaos. This would still function, but unfortunately this is something that gets emphasized as the album progresses. So basically after two quite tasty tracks the whole package becomes rather boring, creating an image of a boring layer of noise that gets broken by even weaker segments. This is quite a pity, because in the mix there are several very nice parts, especially on the title track, if you care to look for them closely enough. So what mostly remains is an impression of good stuff being wasted due to too much emphasis on vocal trickery. Jiituomas / Kuolleen Musiikin Yhdistys
Tinnitus Music Webzine (in German)
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