Genre: Black Metal
Label: The Crawling Chaos Records
Line Up:
"Brandmale" is the third full length of this Germanic entity, whose mastermind is Patrick Baumann, who does his utmost to shape a musical project which takes us back to many years ago, in the middle of the history of this genre, and he does it with expertly and professionally.
"Brandmale" is a 55 minutes long journey that is able to recall directly the origins of Black Metal, whose attitude will be the joy of the most nostalgic fans.
Musically inspired by Norwegian classics, the songs' length is quite long, but quite linear through lilting rhythm; basic drumming built of electronic samples and pads, who sound quite real, is the backbone of a tight yet melancholic guitar riffing, no-frills, focused on open chords and tremolos. Everything is supported by a solid bass guitar, and marked by synths that occasionally stand out with unexpected and unusual solutions, like in "Parzival". Last but not least is the screaming, raw and deep, enriched by lyrics in the mother tongue of Patrick. The album sounds old, but a clear mixing makes it be pretty balanced and enjoyable.
Maybe the only drawback is the excessive length of the tracks, and the edge sensed at the beginning like in the opener "Sundflut" and in the tighter "Manche Nacht", can be lost; after all, given the experience of Patrick in the previous works, this "Brandmale" should have been exactly like this: melancholic, dreaming... overall, it is an unquestionable good quality work.
Andrea B.
