Hagana - One Year

Rock and fucking roll. It's Tuesday. Tuesday was named after the God of "Oh cock, is it not weekend yet?" and as such requires something pretty bloody awesome to help carry you along and stop you from tipping over the edge and running out into the street yelling about like, stuff, or something.

Anyway, so - we're almost at midweek and today I was most incredibly excited to get an e-mail from the delightful chaps from Edinburgh who make up the band Hagana. I liked the name so much I wanted to review them straight away. In fact I've been running round saying "Hagana" in a comedy Spanish accent for the last hour. I think I need to step away from the Smarties.

So, this is a bit previous, but their debut album "One Year" will be released on 3rd March and it's one that I really think is a cut above, just from the initial play through.

First impressions: Absolutely corking riffs, bone shaking and blood thickening. Intense and powerful vocals and brilliant harmonies.

But look a bit deeper. Yes, look a bit deeper. Come closer and listen again. There's so much more to it.

I was absolutely knocked out by the third track "Fuzzy Punch", this exemplifies a great mixture of all of the above mentioned qualities. In fact I listened to it three times before I moved onto the next song. It's really tightly woven and well produced and has a great 90s grunge feel to it. Most of the tracks here do, there are influences from bands like Weezer and the Foo Fighters in evidence, but the sounds still feel very fresh and unique.

I urge you to watch the video for the abovementioned track here:

HAGANA - FUZZY PUNCH

"Watch My Step" is another stand out track, the opening is really unusual - it sounds strange to say it and I hope the band don't mind me saying this, but the riff at the beginning feels like church bells, it has that kind of chimey progression to it. The chords feel really different and it opens out into another great vocal with tight harmonies.

The last track "Connect 4" is an absolutely awesome way to end. The guitars on it are so down and dirty and there's a nice kind of feeling of fuzz and distortion there compared to the other tracks. It fades out sweetly, which is quite an unusual way to end an album such as this and it works surprisingly well.

If you'd like to check the band out more thoroughly, look at their bandcamp page

hagana.bandcamp.com/

But more than anything, when 3rd March comes round you must go and buy this superb band's debut album. If you want filthy guitars, great vocals and uber cheekiness - Hagana are your guys. HAGANA. Yes.