Recently there has been a lot of mess with reunion of legendary Hazael. Band came back after many years, played some gigs, made a lot of internet chaos, released one single (far from being at least descent) and splitted up. The good thing is the fact, that Hazael’s debut album- Thor has been re-released. So let me take a closer look on this one.
Even album’s title suggest that band is close to the north. And so it is- musically Hazael sounds a bit like Unleashed’s brother. We’ve got similar style, also Tomasz’s vocals are close to Johan’s. Heavy compositions, located mostly in slow or medium tempo, with a dirty, raw guitar sound are like hammer, that smashes everything to the ground. But element which gives Hazael it’s power are melodies. Guitar solos or leads, that create an amazing, ancient atmosphere. Mixing these parts with a classic, death metal slaughter gave a really good result and created one of the most characteristic and influential band for our national extreme metal scene. Everything connected with samples creates amazing atmosphere, years ago Hazael members described their music as frost death metal. I can’t think of more accurate term to describe them. Songs like “Frozen Majesty”, “Wyrd” or “Seven Winds” just strikes with an amazing, winter atmosphere.
Too bad that Hazael reunion was nothing but a mess. It would be great, if they could come back to that level. Or maybe “Thor” is one, great album that should be a closed part of history? Hard to say, so let’s conclude everything this way: We’re dealing with one of the most unique pieces of polish death metal. I think that every listener should admit, that “Thor” is a special CD.

Wojciech Michalak