>There’s something gloriously untamed about ‘Hazel’, the debut full-length from LA’s Sluttony. Equal parts confessional and confrontational, the album reads like a diary left open on the floor after a house party; pages warped from tears, ink smeared with sweat and mascara, but still burning with clarity.
Built on a foundation of slow-burning distortion and thick, deliberate rhythm, ‘Hazel’ unspools like a coming-of-age film shot on grainy 16mm, one that doesn’t tidy up the mess or mute the contradictions. At its centre is the elusive figure of Hazel, a symbolic thread tying together tales of uncertainty, rage, longing, and defiance.
From the opening track ‘Smoke Screen’, lead singer Hannah Goodwin demands space for her vulnerability. Her voice moves between hushed contemplation and piercing catharsis, riding the band’s sludgy arrangements like a wave gathering weight. Sabine Hovnanian’s drumming is restrained but forceful, while Caroline Margolis (bass) and Nina Maravic (guitar) lock into grooves that feel both intimate and immense.
The title-track ‘Hazel’ is the album’s linchpin, a slow-burn anthem that grows from ghostly fragility to full-throated eruption. Its final chorus lands like a gut-punch, not because it tries to soar, but because it chooses to simmer and seethe instead. It’s the sound of young women navigating inherited expectations while building something entirely their own.
There’s a deliberate lo-fi roughness here, the kind that feels less about aesthetic choice and more about lived reality. You can hear the tension in the amp buzz and the bleed of room mics capturing shouts that hit harder than polish ever could. It’s unvarnished in the best possible way.
Like early Wolf Alice or Mannequin Pussy at their most introspective, ‘Hazel’ thrives in ambiguity, that push-pull between strength and softness. And through it all, the band’s chemistry is palpable. You get the sense that these songs were born in cramped practice spaces, carved out through shared glances and loud mistakes.
By the time the album winds down, ‘Hazel’ has offered a reckoning with identity, womanhood, and the ache of becoming. Sluttony carve their music out of calloused hands, unafraid to show what bleeds.