format: LP
year: 1983
country: Venezuela
label: private
#: LP-001
info:
style: Hard Rock, psych, prog
Side A:
Side B:
There's 3 major reasons why a band like HAZ should pique the interest most die-hard, obscure Metal-fans and those are: ARKANGEL, RESISTENCIA and GILLMAN - that's pretty much 3 of the 5 greatest Hispanic Metal bands of all time, all from the same country and time period! Ish.
Add to that the huge coolness-factor of the hand-drawn sleeve art of this their privately pressed (in bloody Venezuela!) debut and there's just no way in un-bloody-holy hell this can be anything but - at the very least - pretty fucking cool, right??
Yeah, you guessed it: It's shit. And not even of the interesting sort, like with a capital S, in italics or with an exclamation mark at the end; no, just regular, boring, average waste-of-time shit. Funny thing is, when I decided to write about this record quite a while ago I wasn't sure at all what kind of a review it would turn out to be. My initial disappointment from way back when the album finally got added to my collection has keept my hands and ears away from it for many years and I guess some small part of me was hoping I'd somehow rediscover and reevaluate it, but no. Still shit. I couldn't really be bothered with a normal review, so here's a short list of pros (not really "pros") and cons:
(not quite) Pros:
-
The keyboards are zany and ott in a fun sort of way
- Some tunes are quite fast, like old-Motörhead fast at least.
- The lack of distortion and funny vocal style in "Lo Que Hay.." makes them sound a bit like Nepalese cultists The Crisis, but nowhere near as good.
- Closer "Vida De Rockero" sounds decent compared to the rest of the album, like a filler on the first Arkangel album The Hand Of Doom's Poisonoise.
Cons:
- Proggy proto-metal opener
"Gente Diferente", because it's almost good and thus promises too much.
-
"El Rock Del Gato" coz it's a shit token r'n'r filler,
- Most of the other tracks too, no matter wheather they're fast garage rock or proggy fluff or as often is the case, a very amateurish mix of both.
- While fuzzy enough for any psych fan, the guitars are totally devoid of heaviness and punch and are often out of tune (I first thought the record suffered from Dislocated Cetre-Hole Syndrom - a common flaw in Venezuelan pressings, but no, not this time),
-
The vocals.
Do the math, then skip ahead 5 years to the superior 2nd album.