EP Review: Vol. 3

I first came across Lorenzo Hazelwood last year with his single Same Mistake, which I thoroughly enjoyed, but due to one or two lockdowns I had been unable to catch either him or his band, Cut To The Bone, in concert. Thankfully, that was rectified last Saturday when he performed an acoustic gig (it’s hard to undertake rock gigs in Red Traffic Light) and I came away mightily impressed with his voice and approach to music. Lorenzo has a passion for acoustic guitar, combined with a love of grunge, and on this new five-track EP he has put the two together. To assist him on this he brought in the very-much-in-demand drummer Adam Tobeck (Outside In) plus LA-based bassist Dan Antunovich, while also tapping up his Close To The Bone bandmate Oscar Millar to provide some lead guitarwork.

One can imagine Lorenzo cutting the demos with just him and his acoustic, and then bringing in the musicians to really help him beef up the sound (there is also some string-style keyboards here and there). The result is something which is definitely a mix of different genres, and I found there is also an American country feel to it as well. This is something which Lorenzo can happily go out and perform on his own, and two of these songs were indeed aired the other night, or he can work them with a full band to take them in a different direction. He is not a singer/songwriter in the sense which many may think, but instead he is playing rock with an acoustic base, which is quite different. There are times when he slows it down and gently picks, such as on Weak, but this is all about providing contrast and soon the full band is back in, rocking it all along. Like all metalheads, I do have a soft spot for a bit of grunge now and then, but I have already preferred those taking that music in different directions such as the sadly missed The Symphony of Screams. But they thought of their music more as progressive grunge, while here the acoustic guitar is firmly in focus – we even get percussion on Ennui which takes it to a different place again!

Thinking man’s grunge maybe? However one wants to describe this EP, it is not like most of the grunge out there and is a million miles away from the likes of Smells Like Teen Spirit, and to my ears is all the better for it. This EP shows a maturity and depth which belies his young age, and is worthy of investigation who want their music to have strength and power with plenty of contrast and dynamics.