Cruise Torts stands as the varied garage rock project of multi-instrumentalist Paul Dunne. After years in the Boston DIY scene playing in bands, Paul hunkered down and started amassing multiple solo projects during the pandemic (Franciscan Honey, javahead, and spliffolympics… just to name a few). Cruise Torts is his newest effort to sound brash, unadulterated, and as live as any full band could possibly be.
Throughout the five-and-a-half-minute runtime of Dunne’s “Hazy,” you are introduced to many sides of the artist. As the song begins, you are introduced to warping guitars that crawl through dense distortion to deliver hypnotic melodies via thick chords. The slow-burning, grunge-tinged intro then dissolves into more blistering tempos as ghostly vocals add another layer of psychedelic fuzz. Dunne successfully blends grunge tropes with the experimentation of noise rock while packaging the hectic fusion in a bow tied by alien-like musicianship. The miraculous thing about “Hazy” is how the artist achieved a dynamic sound in his quest for distorted bliss. By cramming his many influences and lofty ideas into a honed structure, Dunne emerged with something he could call his own. “Hazy” is an exploration into the limits of rock as the artist pushed the boundaries to create a mesmerizing single of otherworldly proportions.
“Sometimes the past is just as hazy as the future, but stumbling blindly in the present can still grant a significant stride…” explains Dunne.
