Hazel Gaze Pair Rock Grit With Orchestral Detail on Strung Out: Live & Unplugged at the Brooklyn Conservatory

Hazel Gaze bring a raw sense of character to Do As You Please, the lead single from their live project Strung Out: Live & Unplugged at the Brooklyn Conservatory. Rooted in classic rock but stripped back enough to let the songwriting breathe, the track finds the New York quartet trading studio polish for the immediacy of a room full of musicians playing together. Strings add a cinematic edge to the arrangement, giving the song a richer scale without taking away from its rock ’n’ roll bite.

At its centre, Do As You Please is driven by a raspy, commanding vocal and a knowing sense of attitude. Hazel Gaze describe the track as “Sophisticated Spite”, and that tension between elegance and defiance comes through in the performance. Backing vocals, live instrumentation and the string arrangement weave around the central vocal with enough space and movement to make the recording feel genuinely alive, rather than simply a studio track reproduced in an acoustic setting.

Watch the video of 'Do It As You Please' here:

What makes the performance particularly effective is its sense of chemistry. Recorded live at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music by Grammy-nominated engineer Daniel Alba, the track captures a band comfortable enough with its musicianship to let the imperfections and interplay become part of the appeal. Do As You Please ultimately feels less like a nostalgic exercise in revisiting the unplugged era and more like Hazel Gaze finding a new setting in which their songwriting can reveal another side.

Stream it here: