Review: Hazards of Swimming Naked @ the Zoo
I have to commend instrumentalist bands. I think as soon as you omit lyrics from your music, you immediately lose about three quarters of your potential audience – which must be hard when your music is pretty awesome. Local instrumental specialists Hazard’s of Swimming Naked are one such band – accommodating for the niche market that appreciates this less commercial genre – they played The Zoo a couple of weeks ago.
The band, Adrian Diery, Rick Anzolin, Cameron Diery, Gareth Rigden, Chris Lait, Josh Peters, and Kirk Harmer are all clearly talented musicians who work amazingly well together on stage. I think the sort of synergy they possess is often indicative of the fact that a band have had years together, but it’s something that Hazards have managed to pull of in the short amount of time they have been playing as an outfit.
As a post-rock band, Hazards mainly focus on developing and maintaining an ambience for the entirety of the set. The set list saw the building of a number of dramatic crescendos and declines, which is obviously an attribute to their abilities to work alone as members and as a flowing, living and breathing organism heading through a twisted life-cycle whilst onstage.
Having seen quite a few post-rock instrumental outfits in my time as a punter, I find there is something both equally mesmerising and lacking by this type of music in a live environment. The lack of movement and lighting on stage detracts from the visual aspect (which the band partially succeeded in decoying via a projector behind them), but the mood and flow of the music creates an amazing mixture of moods and feelings throughout the set – from sleepiness to anxiety to alarm and back again.
Something that I found with this set was that it was hard for me to find much distinction between old and newer material. Each song managed to seamlessly meld into the next in a twisted, extended movement. Mixing newer tunes with their established release, Our Lines Are Down, the set was a great mixture of new and older material.
Although this kind of live music may not for everyone, I sincerely guarantee that you will be intrigued by seeing this outfit live. Move away from the normal indie-alt-rock bullshit – step outside your comfort zone and go on a mental journey whilst watching one of Queensland’s new big things. I guarantee the rest of the country will crack onto it soon.