Audio By Carbonatix
“How many sparrows are inside a cat?/How many cats in a man?/How long can you keep your eyes shut on the interstate?” Boston’s adventurous art-punk outfit Ho-Ag asks plenty of screwball questions on its latest EP, Pray for the Worms, but offers little in the way of easy answers (not that there ever were any). Balancing out the eternal mysteries of food chains and reckless driving, however, is the band’s tastefully dissonant approach to danceable trash and abstract noise. With diverse instrumentation that squeezes saw blades, mallets, wind chimes and megaphones into a tightly wound panic attack of jostling guitars and sinister Moog, Ho-Ag recalls the herky-jerky spazz of the early B-52’s or Brainiacs — that is, when they’re not scoring the quiet soundtrack of a low-budget horror flick. Extending an open invitation to the earth’s beheading, Ho-Ag seems as comfortable gigging in a backyard tool shed as at a Christmas-tree farm in the middle of nowhere. This Thursday they invade the 15th Street Tavern, amps blazing, ready to interrogate lovers and fighters alike in the pursuit of life’s little imponderables.
