Photo by Nick Brisbois

Patrick Flynn — hardcore frontman great to Fiddlehead and Have Heart –says his new art-punk band How Much Art “was born out of a yearning to be really free and creative.” Having seen the band live, that’s glaringly true in the way Flynn dances around the stage while his ‘mates — an assembly of kindred spirits from his own bands as well as GEL and New England DIY scene undercurrents Qualms and Sweet Jesus in guitarist Maddi Nave, bassist Adam Gonsalves, drummer Shawn Costa, and synth player Justin Mantell — revel in the synergy between Flynn’s emotive passion and their neon wave sweeping through the pit.

“XO”, their second single, is all about love in five different languages. It goes harder beyond chemicals like oxytocin and the cliché beating of the heart, and rather, deep within the core of the body where the intensity of it all lives inside your bones. Flynn’s wailing surrender to it can on one hand be viewed as frightening, but so is one of the human experience’s deepest emotions that when we attempt to understand it, leaves us without answers in finding the right words for it. And so we scream.

How Much Art’s “XO” single is available now on Convulse Records.