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HAZZERD “The 3rd Dimension”
HAZZERD “The 3rd Dimension”
By Dr. Abner Mality
What the heck is in the water up in Canada? There must be some kind of microorganism in it that causes victims to become wildly obsessed with thrash metal. Canada is the hottest place on Earth for classic thrash metal right now, with killer bands like TERRIFIER, KORROSIVE, TYMO and more showing how it’s done. And here comes another one...HAZZERD, out of Calgary,AB.
This band does a great job of combining balls-out speed with a more melodic and classical metal approach. This is what made METALLICA and MEGADETH so great back in the day. HAZZERD drops the hammer with “Interdimension”, “Scars”, ThRaSh TiL Deth” and “Parasitic”. These suckers just flat out rage, in pure thrash tradition. They remind me of HAVOK at their most fierce, especially the raspy angry vocals of Dylan Westerndorp...who also drums up a storm! I wonder how he would handle the drum/vocals combo live?
Then we get the slightly more composed and melodic brand of thrash, which comes across in “Unto Ashes”, “Deathbringer” and the epic instrumental “A Fell Omen”. These remind me more of TESTAMENT and MEGADETH...”Deathbringer” has a lot of twin harmony guitar while “A Fell Omen” starts in almost YNGWIE fashion with tasteful shredding before it hits the gas. The album ending “Control” has more of a chunky early METALLICA chug that loosens up the neck muscles. While all of this is going on, screaming leads can come slicing in like knives at any time.
HAZZERD is another case of not reinventing the wheel, but making the most out of the wheel you’ve got. This is thrash that could have come out of 87 or 88, that’s how good it is. Canada strikes again!
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