Dead Hazards don’t politely knock at your door—they crash through it face-first, smelling of petrol and stale feedback, then start dragging their nails down your walls. Their debut album Saline isn’t interested in being liked. It’s an ugly, sprawling, proudly chaotic slab of grunge-soaked metal that gnaws at the edges of genre and dares you to keep up. It’s also, when it hits right, fucking brilliant.
Let’s get one thing straight: this band aren’t here to be your friends. There’s sludge, there’s grit, and there are moments of absolute unhinged beauty buried in the murk. Opener Rerouting sets the tone with grimy distortion and percussion that sounds like someone booting a car door shut. If you’re after clean, glossy production, jog the fuck on—Dead Hazards are all rust, fuzz, and bloodied fingernails.
The standouts are many, if you’re into your head getting caved in with flair. Who’s Invited brings a grotty, almost sludge inflected groove under guttural wails—an early curveball that makes you double take. Remorse hits harder with a kind of slow-motion doom elegance, like drowning in treacle while someone screams a confession in your ear. By Unpaid Tollsand Took A Loan, things take a turn toward more structured rock riffs, but it’s never straight-laced—there’s always some off-kilter violin stab or ambient hiss lurking in the mix, keeping you from ever getting too comfy.
Credit where it’s due: the homemade textures and weird sonic tricks (Zippo percussion, really?) never feel gimmicky. It all adds to the unshakable sense that Saline is a slow descent into a murky basement where the walls hum and things shift when you’re not looking. Prime and Endless Delay in particular play with tension and release in ways that feel almost cinematic. Then you hit Mold—a swampy, crawling beast of a track that genuinely sounds diseased, and I mean that as a compliment.D
But let’s not pretend this is perfect. There’s bloat. Thirteen tracks might be a statement, but around Crippling Faith and Lazyeye, you start to feel the weight of the album’s excess. Some tracks bleed into each other a bit too much, and not every left-turn pays off. Tourist Trap, for example, tries to juggle too many ideas and ends up feeling like an interlude that overstayed its welcome. And Excess—ironically the closer—is a little too on-the-nose, descending into indulgence without the same payoff as earlier moments of madness.
Still, fuck me if this isn’t one of the more interesting debuts.. Dead Hazards may not care about polish or palatability, but what they’ve got instead is far more valuable: identity. Saline is feral, disjointed, at times genuinely unpleasant—but it’s alive. It howls. It’s got splinters. And in an age where too many rock bands are just painting by numbers, this lot are building their own crypt and inviting you in for a ritual. Just don’t expect to leave clean.
CHECK OUT THE BAND HERE
MORE REVIEWS FROM RGM HERE