Dead Hazards are not here to play it safe. With their debut full-length ‘Saline’, the London-based outfit has charged headfirst into the murky borderlands between doom, punk, psych, and post-whatever- you name it. Unlike many bands who boast genre fusion as a badge of honour only to churn out a blur of indistinct noise, Dead Hazards deliver on the promise.
At first listen, ‘Saline’ feels like being dragged into a fever dream by a weighty monolithic riff- familiar, yes, but something’s off in the best possible way. ‘Prime’ sets the tone, crushing low-end and scorched-earth distortion meets vocals that veer between theatrical and primal. Think Pallbearer mixed with a chamber choir set loose in the desert.
This duality pulses throughout the album. ‘Lazyeye’ is the record’s head-nodding moment, a track built on thick, grooving riffage that wouldn’t be out of place in a stoner rock playlist circa 1996, but it’s warped through Dead Hazards’ unmistakable lens. Meanwhile, ‘Cripping Faith’ leans harder into experimentalism, with manipulated ambient noise and textures that feel less like production choices and more like sonic archaeology- digging through static to find the human voice underneath.
What truly sets ‘Saline’ apart is its fearlessness with form. Guitar solos? Forget them- Dead Hazards swap them out for bowed strings mangled through pedalboards. Cymbals and snare? Sometimes they’re replaced by found sounds and field recordings. Even the album’s conceptual bones feel daring, an extended meditation on emotional alienation, expressed in tones that are anything but cold.
The production- gritty but intentional- doesn’t polish the jagged edges, nor should it. There’s a raw immediacy here that keeps everything grounded, no matter how far the band stretches stylistically. It’s chaotic, but never incoherent. And despite being pieced together over months in disjointed sessions, ‘Saline’ feels cohesive, almost obsessively so. That’s a testament not only to the band’s vision but to the careful work of engineer João Janz, who clearly understood the assignment.
Dead Hazards may have emerged from the sludge underground, but ‘Saline’ is anything but buried. It’s bold, inventive, and full of the kind of risk-taking that makes debut albums memorable. This isn’t just an opening statement- it’s a sonic labyrinth waiting to be explored.