What the Ho-Ag?!? - Boston Prog-Math-Metal-Spaz-Rock band releases new album TONIGHT @ Oberon

Tonight, Ho-Ag will join be joined by Hallelujah the Hills and Dear Leader in a truly epic bill at Cambridge's Oberon to celebrate the release of their creation. It's a rare show for the members of Ho-Ag, who certainly must be accounting for their scarcity of shows by spending massive amounts of time writing, arranging, rehearsing and recording their fascinatingly complex, Zappa-for-the-no-wave-set creations.

I first became aware of their musical talents through their connection to the majestic Animal Hospital Ensemble, and while Ho-Ag might not have 30 guitarists, their sound is no less detailed and envisioned.

World Destroying Zig-Zags' songs skitter like ball-bearings in a hot teflon pan. Songs like "See You At The Brush Pass" start out as well-engineered, crunchy riff-fests, but reveal themselves to be more-than-usually intricate guitar/keys/drums creations that hunch along like creepy little square-shaped ghoulies. "I Spy the Spider Rider" introduces a drop of California punk into our hot pan, sizzling and splatting into proggy, dissonant modal gyrations which make perfect sense to (chief among them) Ho-ag themselves. Spurts of metallic noise-rock pop like grease explosions in the screeching "Vulgar Crowd." Something for everyone--as long as your 'everyone' includes friends with exotic tastes in synth-heavy, spasmodic riff-rock.

Keyboardist/vocalist Tyler Derryberry sums up the experience of being able to play in a band that works in a conglomeration of styles so rarely suited to keyboards as this:

"Ho-Ag at this point is pretty much a band built for the kind of synth parts I like to play; dense, melodramatic, anxiety-inducing, confusing but still melodic. I'm definitely more drawn to a string-section-in-a-horror-movie-soundtrack kind of playing than a Dr. John solo or something. I love synthesizer-heavy bands like Hot Chip, Holy Ghost, etc, BUT I'm personally not that creatively interested in adding to that pile of party music. Maybe I'm just not that optimistic of a person. I'd prefer to play heavier, greasier stuff. There's not a lot of new music out there that keys in on that frequency of anxious dread and then gleefully pounds on it like we do. That's more my speed."

Ho-Ag
Record Release
Thursday, February 21
Oberon (Harvard Sq)
with Hallelujah the Hills and Dear Leader