Review: Braindamage – The Downfall

Futurist, abrasive and visionary.

We play music in the best Avantgardish Metal tradition of VOIVOD and KILLING JOKE, appealing to the modern-ish last decade’s growing Post-Thrashy audience.

You’ll get a dramatic avveniristic musical experience, a real futurist dissonant Post-Thrash Metal.

Wait for something really shattering and upsetting!

Italian foursome Braindamage have released their 10 track album The Downfall, although a little short on track titles it would seem. Their sound although powerful sort of protrudes through a beguiling menace that sweeps through an apocalyptic dust cloud and stays close to its boundaries of post thrash metal.

Interesting to know is that on the birth of the band 29^th February 1988 they released a demo called Kingdom of Madness. Now where have I heard that before? Could it be from Magnum’s album of the same name around eleven years before? Although not in the same vein perhaps but it conjured up some good memories all the same!

It isn’t until the third traccia that things start picking up a bit with some good solid bass injected into it, however it doesn’t win any unusual awards for being different and just the usual run of the mill metal riffs, which is a shame.

It is like the band are stuck in a time warp, hedging their bets on producing something that incessantly crawls and not overly driven apart from a few good chugs, and a desperate attempt to make the vocals sound urgent.

It does in places sound very dead, unappealing and similar in execution, so perhaps calling each track ‘traccia’ was a good move after all!

The album hasn’t produced a wow factor and aimlessly twists and turns giving off a confused, although cantankerous edge to the proceedings and kind of leaves the listener with nowhere to go to escape its monotone savagery.

For me this album is very disappointing, predictable and sadly lacking in direction. It isn’t to say the band are not talented musicians but that they have not used their twenty eight years wisely and tried to break out of a rut that seems to be restricting them somewhat.

There is some energy in there and some good solid hooks but sadly they are levelled with a dull thud that dies and then resurrects itself to die all over again, so instead of getting that high octane sound what you get are sounds that go nowhere, fizzle out and amount to nothing.

It is like being blindfolded, remove the blindfold and find yourself in a dark room – nothing much happens from then on in. The emotion is trapped therefore leaving the listener frustrated as nothing is allowed the freedom to blossom and become wholly fertile.