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HAZARDOUS
Highly Contagious EP

Self-released (2023)
Rating: 4.5/10

Four tracks are delivered on the this debut outing from Istanbul, Turkey-based thrashers Hazardous. These guys formed four years ago and in that time they should have realised that the vocals are a major irritant. Persistent squawking squabbles litter this EP and they do far more harm than good. The biggest issue here is that those ear-scraping tones belong to founding member Hamit Özmen, so don’t expect any changes.

If you can somehow tolerate your skull being scraped then what you get is a mish mash of thrash n’ hardcore. Riff-wise it’s extremely contemporary, clinical and a tad mechanical as evidenced by the opening title track, but once those vocals hit it’s game over… and not in a positive way.

The track which suffers most is ‘Long Live The New Flesh’, which starts promisingly enough with the hard drums but the vocal tirades are pure cartoonish comedy. And so the theme continues with the band carving out reasonably catchy and sharp thrash metal severely let down by Donald Duck’s aunt on vocals.

Two more tracks come in the form of ‘Fear The Old Blood’ and ‘Shapeshifter’, the latter being my favourite due to its scything axe work. Put even a half decent singer on this EP and you’ve got yourself a crunchy and zipping release, but all the while Özmen is speaking for the band Hazardous is a no go area.

Neil Arnold

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