For all those that are not familiar with HAZAEL let me clear one thing up… this was one of the most important and classic bands from Poland back in the 90s and if I would need to use a term to describe this twisted Polish band, I would certainly need to use “devilish”, devilish their dirty sound, devilish the whole atmosphere, devilish their logo… and more precisely… devilish their overall concept. I say all this strictly based on what I received from the label, which was a promo CD-R called “Clairvoyance”, a re-issue of their infamous 1992 demo recording but now unveiled to the delight of those who have not heard about this classic band… thanks to Psycho Records back in late 2011. Here we find a band delivering an offensive form of Thrash / Black Metal, very oriented to create a certain atmosphere that seems to be related to the early South American school, I mean SARCOFAGO or MORTEM, but still preserving the style of the Polish stuff. The adds say that this is pretty connected with the Swedish sound… well… couldn’t find any clue on that… in fact, as a matter of reference there are moments where I recall another Polish band from the 90s called BUNDESWEHRA, particularly in that infamous split with NERGAL… and that was way back long ago… I mean, the overall sound is pretty blurred, pretty chaotic but still under control, recurring to slow and fast tempos, all connected with this voices that seem to be recorded from a cavern due to the delay applied over it… voices summoning the ancient gods of evil. There are some moment where a sinistrous keyboard appears… and shit… that is really creepy. We have to set clear that this is an underground recording from the 90s, so the overall recording is pretty amateurish, and having said that, the production lacks a bit in terms of mixing. However, good news is that this re-issue was re-mastered and fixed from the original tapes, so the sound is really good for something that was done 20 years ago. Good effort to bring this masterpiece out of the darkness and let new generations to get to know more about this classic Polish band that encapsulated within this work, the whole scent of the underground scene back then. For underground freaks, this is like an archeological item unburied from an ancient pantheon of forgotten icons. Totally recommended. www.wydawnictwopsycho.com