Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Ho-Ag - The News From Pluto



Ho-Ag - The News From Pluto
(2006, Hello Sir Records)

There are a few things we've come to expect from bands brought to us by Hello Sir Records. These include, but are not limited to, a blitz of guitar driven energy, time signatures that change on a dime, ass kicking riff/melodies and quite a bit of screamin' and yellin'. All of these elements are present and accounted for on The Word From Pluto, the new collection of recorded music from Boston's Ho-Ag.

Their sound lies somewhere in the badlands between the heavy riffage of NoMeansNo and the mathy kookiness of Devo. Drums pound and drive. Guitars nimbly rock the hell out. The occasianally obnoxious synthesizer is for the most part tastefully used and is rarely at the musics forefront.

Ho-Ag play with a vicious precision that rides the line between control and spastic entropy. The music continually threatens to collapse under the weight of its own energy but flashes off into a new direction before that happens. A tasteful dollop of melody and ear for off-kilter hooks distinguishes Ho-Ag from the other wannabe, art-punk mathnicks.

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