COTTONWOODHILL

I love the hammond organ. It is the instrument of choice for me. When it is distorted and thumping away or when it is soothing and relaxing, gentle and loving. It does not matter. The organ. The word alone gives me shockwaves of delight.

On the wings of the organ I can suffer much and plenty. Having said that I must admit to sort of liking Brainticket's first album. The organ is omnipresent and really distorted. "Black sand" is quite a nice track. The vocals merge together with the organ in a very scary but fascinating way. Although... The presence of organ does in fact do little to warm my heart to this kind of music.

By large it is a collection of droning, so-called mind exppanding noise and uttter fury which in my ears leave little room for shifts in moods and texture and it gives me no rest at all. This is scary stuff. It is demented, twisted and very special, I have to say. I suppose that there are similarities to bands like Faust and Can etc but unlike the latter I only feel intimidated and uneasy by Brainticket's Cottonwoodhill. It sounds to my ears like a long nightmare without an end and that is not really entertaining or enjoyable.

The plus sides of the album, to speak of those, are the sort of unique ability to create music that is dark as the darkest darkness (plus-dark, as it would read in 1984) and scary like few black metal band have ever been able to. Whle this has nothing to do with black metal, it's scaryness lies in the dark and twisted sounds and noises made. No, the album does not lack melody or structure but it is, to me, simply a long droning experience. If you like this kind of music I suppose that this would be your cup of tea but to me it is simply unintelligable, though I recognize their plight and effort. I can even appreciate them for it.

So, how to rate it? I really do not know. On the basis of the plus sides, and avoiding my own and personal view, it would be rated four stars. I will however rate it from my perspective and that leaves me no choice but to award this scary pit of dark despair two stars. To me it is an overrated piece of noodling and an exercise in droning. Sorry!