For every tried and true musical taxonomy, someone out there is burning to bust out the next mind-bogglingly trope to define “their” music. These new sub-genres are about as welcome as a jobless houseguest and both usually stick around long enough to go from mildly amusing to aggravating. That said here’s Bloodhag’s second release “Hell Bent for Letters” with the prerequisite “edu-core” tag firmly attached.“Hell Bent For Letters” isn’t an epistolary affair; rather, it’s about a band getting more juiced up about the alphabet than Big Bird at the end of Sesame Street. This Seattle four-some is made up of aspiring science fiction writers whose motto is “the faster you go deaf, the more time you have to read.” It sounds like a laugh, but the band plays it serious, whether it’s throwing books at the audience at live shows, naming all of their songs after science fiction writers or including an exhaustive lyrics sheet with equally exhaustively researched lyrics.
Nerd fantasy this is. And, musically it’s serviceable too. Over buzzing guitars and attention deficit percussion, singer J.B Stratton growls about his favourite writers and their books. The guttural howls are nearly incomprehensible, which makes the lyrics sheet all that more necessary and the lyrics surprisingly sturdy. On Arthur C. Clarke, Stratton chants “because of this monolithic obelisk genesis, rewrite the ironic bit. His literary gift's eclipsed, by Kubrick and a script, but undiminished by it!”
Is it a gimmick? Sure, but one that’s easy enough to buy into. Replace Bill Kurtis with Tom Araya on Biography and what comes out is something like “Hell Bent for Letters” – a tight ball of education and entertainment coming to a library near you.
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