Andreas Brandal — Blunt Force Trauma

'Blunt Force Trauma' finds the often noise bound & prolific Andreas Brandal( Flesh coffin, Hour Of The Wolf, Drevne Bolesti) in a slightly less noise & more horror fed harmonic state of sonic mind. Though there’s still a fair share of noise bound elements thrown towards you with-in here too; it just more atmospheric & harmonic bound in it’s intent then much of his work I’ve heard thus far.

This CDR offers up a four part suite of grimness & horror fed sonics with each part hitting around about the ten minute mark a-piece.  It’s quite a difficult album to tie down into only one sonic genre as each track is cleverly layered & detailed with so many different sonic disciplines & elements of dread & horror filled sound making. With the album as a whole seeing Brandal mix elements of: malevolent industrial, doom, dark ambience, jittering dark electroinca, subtle noise making and horn like doomed cinematics. Each track packs it’s elements of fear, horror & often sonic surprise as Brandal snakes, drags & suddenly twists the tracks along very effectively .

On the first few plays I was a little unsure about it all as it felt like there was at times too much going on , too many layers at play & too many ideas trying to get my attention; but over time I’ve come to very much appreciate it’s grim & often  off-balancing damned twists and turns that give one the feeling akin to been in  maze like haunted house or maybe trying to open one of the Hellraiser puzzle  boxes.

‘Blunt Force Trauma’ is the most detailed & at times sonically complex work I’ve heard from Brandal  thus far with the album been very much a grower; you just have to give it a little time for it to sink it’s teeth into you. But it’s certainly worthy of your time & effort if you enjoy Brandal's other work or are just looking for creative horror thick sonics.