BRANDKOMMANDO: Jugoslavija 1941-1945

Release year: 2024
Label: Zoharum

The tricky thing with music such as power electronics is that often its hard to get a grasp on the thematics. And often, when you do, it’s hard to know the angle. Are they for it? Against it? Or is there some deeper, non-binary approach?

Zoharum’s promotional text affirms that Polish Brandkommando’s take is one contesting and condemning totalitarianism and the terror of Tito’s regime. Just as well that they do, because quite frankly – the music doesn’t really give a clue.

I suppose the easiest and probably most accurate label to put on Brandkommando is power electronics. Within that field, the Polish project exists on the more understated, minimalist edge of the spectrum. The compositions consist of undulating waves of industrial noise, crackling static and the churning of dying machines, all covered in a layer of rusting distortion. The long tracks – all just about 10 minutes in running time – focus on hypnotizingly monotonous, shifting but not necessarily significantly evolving layers of repetitive noise. This isn’t particularly extreme or abrasive music – within the context of power electronics, of course.

Essentially, the music wouldn’t sound particularly like its themes were it not for the ample amounts of samples used. Military marches, folk songs and speeches all anchor the music… well, to the layman, not necessarily Yugoslavia, but there is a certain old timey communist feel especially to the marches.

Over all of this, viciously shouted, snarled and growled vocals are layered. The style of the vocals could almost be a fit for extreme metal. And when they’re also covered in layers of distortion, they’re next to incomprehensible most of the time. Probably very topical and all, but I can’t make out almost a word of them – and even if I could, they’re not in any language I speak, ha.

My earlier contact with Brandkommando is the old Liquid Times tape, which I didn’t particularly care for. Of course, I was smart enough to not let impressions of almost 15 years create preformed ideas. And verily: if that tape left me wanting, Jugoslavija 1941-1945 does not.

Quite the contrary. I find myself impressed by the potency of it. The album uses its understated structures, the violence of the lyrics and the atmosphere of the samples to great effect, creating a sort of panorama of impressions, where the samples paint a landscape, the noise wreathes it in violence and the vocals adorn it with colours of condemnation and anger.

Jugoslavija 1941-1945 is an album of controlled, premeditated use of amusical industrial noise. Some of the layers have a harsh edge to them, but overall this is not so much violence unleashed as controlled and confined anger. For friends of that kind of stuff, I can wholeheartedly recommend this.

Brandkommando doesn’t seem to have an online presence.