BLOODHAG

I like a good joke as much as I like a good musty-smelling sci-fi novel from a flea market or a used bookstall (anyone with the Ace paperback editions of the Edgar Rice Burroughs books, I want 'em). This should make me a prime candidate for assimilation by "edu-core" nerds BLOODHAG — four aging dweebs who (obviously) title all their songs after sci-fi and fantasy authors, throw old paperbacks into the crowd at their shows, and impress many with their reverent death metal homage to famous, infamous, and underappreciated authors.

Well, reading is fundamental, but BLOODHAG's music ain't. It's the kind of decent, forgettable death metal that any scene head over 30 has by the shoebox-full on hand-copied demos in their bedroom closet. There are clever moments — the "save Pern! Save Pern!" chant that closes "Anne McCaffrey" being one — and the generally chaotic, sloppy, off-the-rails quality of their death metal is refreshing in an old-school, lunkheaded sort of way.

But I'd bet you a ride in the BLABBERMOUTH.NET corporate chopper against a date with your sister that if some band of 30-year-old dumbfucks in stiff jeans and high-top sneakers from Swampass, Michigan, sent this exact album to Alternative Tentacles, with songs about vaginal mastication and syzygial miscreancy (viva HELLWITCH!),they'd be ignored. No, worse, they'd be laughed at. Don't get me wrong, I respect the hell out of the label, and they'll always rule for bringing the world DEAD KENNEDYS, NOMEANSNO and LARD. But I'm not gonna buy into a shticky death metal band because they say I should.

If BLOODHAG makes a few people read some of the sci-fi classics, that'd be awesome. But judging strictly by the music itself — apparently the least important part of the equation here — they're a clunky, sloppy, admittedly fun third-tier band who sound like they time-warped in from a JL America compilation circa 1993. The joke just doesn't have a lot of staying power, because it sounds like death metal made by people far, far too hip to actually listen to any death metal. Put it this way — I'd rather delve into their reading list than their set list.

BLOODHAG are a great, great concept. Then again, so is ANAL CUNT, and who actually listens to their albums more than twice? Wake me up when they release "Tome of the Mutilated".