“Hot Hail! arrives less as a continuation of the synth-pop/dancefloor tradition, but more as its savior. ”
- The Big Takeover -
Released 04.21.26
Hot Hail! is proud to announce the release their sophomore album, 'Hope In Hell.'
An intensely personal, sometimes messy attempt to grapple with how we maintain some sense of hope, joy, and faith in the future when so many different kinds of destruction are bearing down on us from all sides.
In a dramatic break from the feral darkwave of their first album, with 'Hope In Hell,' Hot Hail! runs screaming into the arms of anthemic, ultra-catchy synthpop, sliding the bitter themes of the album's lyrics under the listener's door in an envelope made of pure ear candy that evokes the spirit of Tears For Fears, Simple Minds, New Order, and Cyndi Lauper.
Featuring an amazing array of guest vocalists like Kim West (Smokey Brights / Megacat), Henry Mansfield, Sammy Skidmore (Dining Dead), and Frankie Champagne and ‘Butch’ Avery Kanode (Seaside Tryst), 'Hope In Hell' is a wild and flailing embrace of all that is good left in the world.
All music and lyrics written by Billy Sigil
Except "Something Good," © Paul Haig, 1989
Produced, mixed and recorded by Jeffery McNulty and Billy Sigil
Mastered by Rachel Field at Resonant Mastering
Artwork and Photography by Lain (ig @ alayynay)
"Billy Sigil, the restless force behind Seattle’s Hot Hail!, writes like a kid who stole the keys to the apocalypse and tore down the hillside in eyeliner, heels, and a heap of chrome with the radio jammed forever on 1985.
On ‘Hope In Hell,’ Sigil blows the doors off the claustrophobic dread of 'All The Blood You Wanted' and lets in more color, more chorus, more plastic fantastic pop heat, while keeping the fear underneath like a knife taped beneath the dashboard.
This is synthpop as emergency broadcast, queer survival manual, glitter-bombed panic attack, political séance, breakup autopsy, and back-alley joke told while the sirens get closer.
It feels like the band took the polished architecture of ’80s pop and slipped a political hand grenade under the floorboards ... Filthy, smart, enjoyably sick in the head, [and] almost perversely elegant."
- Post-Punk.com
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"On their new LP, ‘Hope In Hell,’ HOT HAIL! performs a cinematic backward-leap out of a burning world, middle fingers extended, all while wrapped in the shimmering, high-contrast glow of 80s New Wave.
‘Hope In Hell’ is a defiant, manic shrug in the face of the abyss. It’s an admission that art might not save us, but in the ruins of the world we thought we knew, these songs are the faint, flickering lights worth surviving for.
- Cvlt Nation
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"‘Hope In Hell’ walks deftly between the rich soundscape of post-punk synth pioneers and the cutting edge of alternative pop, a reminder of those early days when the electronic scene was broad enough to include experimentalists who catered to the creatures of the night as well as the Blitz Kids who would take that same sound overground with the New Romantic sound … whose creative echoes can be heard in Hot Hail!‘s sound.
[There is a ] touch of Soft Cell about it, that same ability to sound like chamber-pop run through the digital world, a blend of understated groove and anthemics, and, lyrically, full of dry wit, dark wisdom, and a killing joke punchline that’s very Almond-esque.
But this is not someone looking backward - well, maybe a few fleeting glances - this is the sound of someone helping to define the sound of the future, and, on the strength of ‘Hope in Hell’, the future sounds like an exciting place to be.
- Dancing About Architecture
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"A head-on collision between glacial synthpop and post-punk rage. In ‘Hope In Hell,’ Hot Hail! delivers a raw and visceral work, where the personal intersects with the turmoil of the contemporary world, with a profoundly sincere approach, far removed from conventional posturing.
It's club music for times of crisis, where sophisticated production meets brutal honesty; it doesn't just get bodies moving; it forces a necessary confrontation with reality. Immediately establishes Billy Sigil as an essential and uncompromising voice on the current alternative scene."
- Iggy Magazine
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