In the dim phosphorescence of Seattle’s subterranean pulse, Billy Sigil, the restless mind behind Hot Hail!, steps into their own mirror maze of camp, chaos, and catharsis. Glennda?, their Halloween-season EP, is less a tribute than an exorcism, where the Misfits’ brute theatrics and Ministry’s machine menace are reanimated through Hot Hail!’s darkwave séance. The result feels illicitly joyous, like someone spray-painting a pentagram in pink glitter.
Sigil’s past looms large here. For over a decade, they fronted the annual genderqueer Misfits cover band Glenn or Glennda?, an event that transformed grim aggression into glittered communion. “Doing Glenn Or Glennda? for so many years was a way to create the version of the band that I wanted to see in the world, in a way, where all the genuine Misfits and weirdos could feel safe and have fun for one night,” Sigil reflects. “Being ‘Glennda’ every year also ended up laying a lot of the groundwork for my eventual realizations about my own gender.” There’s a sense of homecoming in their words, an echo of lipstick-smeared nights and punk absolution.
That same mischief courses through Glennda?, an EP that blurs irony and sincerity until both collapse in laughter. The opener, Halloween (Everyday), stitches together the Misfits’ anthem with Ministry’s Everyday Is Halloween. The result is deliriously seamless: industrial panic pressed against punk pomp. “Honestly, I’m shocked no one else has ever thought to do it,” Sigil admits, a grin implied between the syllables. It’s both joke and revelation: a Frankenstein of two songs whose hearts beat in the same key of theatrical dread.
Personal Babylon follows, fusing Hollywood Babylon with Personal Jesus: a Danzig-meets-Gahan duet we didn’t know we needed. The familiar Depeche Mode bassline struts beneath lyrics about cheap fame and lost salvation, transforming sleaze into sacrament. It’s a perfect collision, camp noir through a disco crucifix.
Then comes I Turned Into a Martian, which, as Sigil winks, “basically invents a new genre called Duran Duranzig.” Imagine bubblegum synths at a monster mash, where Human League harmonizers shimmy beside horror-punk zombies. The song grins at its own audacity: pop so bright it feels radioactive.
The EP’s Bandcamp-exclusive closer, Vampira, floats in on a dry-ice breeze. “It feels like a version of the song that Olivia Newton John could get down with,” Sigil remarks. It’s the perfect exit: velvet camp meets cosmic kitsch, a blacklight waltz for the undead in heels.
“Right now, everything is extremely scary in a very not fun way,” Sigil admits. “I wanted to take a moment… to make something unabashedly and joyously fun and stupid.” Glennda? does exactly that, transmuting dread into delight, fear into farce, and glam into grace.
Listen below…the Glennda? album is free to order here.
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