2 out of 5

Label: Digital bandcamp download

Producer: Justin Faircloth

Pretty generic working-man rock, performed professionally with some occasionally interesting pieces of percussion (as on track two, “Birth”) or keys tippled in the background, the record suffers the most when Hazel starts repeating a “powerful” lyric, which exposes its triteness, or when he goes into some kind of Waits / Dylan mode, trying to force out a guttural, gravelly voice.  It might be legit, but it sounds more like a vibe he’s trying to go for then something that just comes across naturally.  What’s a nice contrast for this style of hometown folk-rockin’ is when Hazel just lets loose yelling on a couple tracks, and this is set in the mix in different ways to keep it effective – either relegated to the background or over-powering the rest of the song – and isn’t used so frequently as to be able to say “oh, here comes the yelly part.”  No, in fact, I can credit the record with jumping between more laidback pieces and rockers at a good clip to keep my ears active, the downside to this being I was able to tune in to how generic most of the affair is, musically and lyrically – beyond the juxtaposition of super angry guy, none of these chord progressions or song topics will surprise you.