Delirium

There’s something to an album that you discover years ago, listen to it once and then basically never think about it again… only to, years later, go back through that band’s earlier work and find that rather enjoyable to the point where you’re giving that first album you’re listening to another shot. That’s basically Delirium to me. It sounded like mediocre modern thrash and, as such, it was shelved, never to be listened to again. However, going back through Victimize the Innocent and Misleading Evil reveals a modern thrash band that, at their best moments, had some serious melodic chops. Something that was missing from quite a large constituent of the scene, especially during the mid-2010s when it seemed like thrash just kinda gave up. Those were notions that Hazzerd were not going to accept lying down, resulting in an occasionally good EP and a very fucking good debut album. Overall, maybe I was a bit rash in underestimating these guys four years ago, right?

Well, not really, because Delirium is still not a very good album. Though certainly not without trying, it doesn’t do a lot to fight off those initial thoughts. Certainly not with how it starts. After greeting us with a Malmsteen-style solo, we’re then born witness… to mediocre speed metal riffs. Ah, but they’re at least building onto something, right? Not exactly. Unfortunately, the riffs just check off thrash metal cliches and refuse to elaborate. The production does it no favors, given their overall dryness robbing the riffs of their power while hollowing out the drums (all while increasing their prominence in the mix). The overall flatness especially robs the chorus of its punch, making it sound more pedestrian and boring than, you know, fun and punchy. Worse off is that this is the case with basically the rest of the album, except that they don’t even have a beginning that sounds like a missing song off an early Malmsteen album. All I end up looking forward to after a while are the ridiculously scorching guitar solos, since Hazzerd have at least kept those in rotation. Granted, the production often makes them a bit more plastic-y, but it doesn’t let down the neoclassical virtuosity of the solos, so there’s still that, at least.

Sounds like a slight dud, but there are some redeeming qualities (beyond the solos, I mean). “Dead in the Shed” is a surprisingly good track reminiscent of the best cuts off their first album, as the razor-sharp speed metal and mid-paced riffing bond like peanut butter and jelly, and the chorus riff complements the gang-shouted title repeat. Just the sheer immediacy of the riffs juxtaposed by the urgent pacing of the vocals gives the chorus a rather punchy quality, but the rest of the song isn’t even close to hitting the snooze button as it instead proves itself an energetic romp that’s simultaneously captivating throughout its runtime due to its sheer riffing prowess. What could’ve been another throwaway thrasher ends up a damn good song. On the other end, “Call of the Void” was a worrying point after going through three mediocre thrash songs, since it was an instrumental and thus it was going to be an even worse version of those three songs. Yet, it actually ends up a rather well-composed instrumental. Rather than just thrashing on through, it adopts a jazzier motif, with a more understated approach to musicianship and a deceptively complex structure to keep the solos and even the riffs engaging without the need to be overly flashy. A more down-to-earth affectation, even when it starts to break into a faster variation (and really, the drumming didn’t have to go that hard and fast, especially not when the solo is still on the down-low both tempo and presence-wise, and even the riff isn’t that fast or heavy, either). These songs remind me of a Hazzerd that could’ve been – though how I forgot all about these songs until giving this another go around, I’ll never know. Maybe I haphazardly lumped them in with the rest of the album at the time.

Outside of those two songs, Delirium is quite a step down from Misleading Evil. The riffs are weaker, the melodies are less engaging, and there’s just nothing to really grab onto apart from maybe the solos. Both albums may have about the same fundamentals, but where Misleading Evil made these cliches interesting, Delirium fumbled the ball and made them fall somewhere between decent and mediocre.