HAZZARD’S CURE ain’t no strangers to the CVLT. The debut record of this Bay Area band embodies a sound located in the midway of Hardcore-Punk at the one end and cheerful Stoner Rock at the other. You get loads of melodic, beer soaked leads and a lot of groovy passages to bang your head to as well as really fast, thrashy parts accompanied by nearly dissonannt, sometimes even Black Metalesque riffing. And now and then kinda both at the same time. Good vocals, pending between intense shouts and “rock” singing, provide a binding element. To calm you down before and after the hectic passages, HAZZARD’S CURE deliver some quiet moments, too (like in Clashing of Hordes for example).
By reading this you’ll might get the impression that HAZZARD’S CURE try to cover a lot of musical ground, and you’re dead on with that. All in all this is a good debut record: It has a lot of strong moments, countless sick riffs and a lot of energy. The guitar work is really superb and the vocals are powerful and diversified enough to keep you hooked throught all of those seven songs.
Basically the only point of critisism I can voice concerns the songwriting. I just can’t get rid of the impression that quite often the fast parts just don’t fit the overall feeling of this record. When HAZZARD’S CURE are slow, sludgy and mean, they are amazing. There’s enough room for the huge riffs and the hilarious lead guitars. But all this gets marginalized too often when they play fast stuff – mostly those fast parts just aren’t as heavy as the slower ones. Not everytime, but mostly (an exception would be the very first song of the record, where the second, fast half is nothing but awesome). I think that a little more focus on the slower side of things would make this record a lot more self-contained.
Minor critisism would refer to the production. It appears a little bit to neat for my taste and lacks balls at the low end. A bit more blood, dirt and sweat would do this record no harm. But that’s really just my personal taste.
HAZZARD’S CURE put out a very solid debut record with lots of ideas, proofing they’ve got all the skills it takes. If they are able to enhance the song writing a bit and give it a heavier, dirtier production this gnarly band is something to look out for. And I’m pretty sure that this shit is quite amazing to witness live, so if you have the chance, do it!
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