HELLO MARY
Emita Ox
(French Kiss Records)
I have a confession to make. When I first heard Hello Mary’s single ‘Special Treat’, I wasn’t especially impressed. I thought it to be average Alt Rock fare. It just goes to show how wrong you can be, and how, as a reviewer, you always need to be open to revising your opinion. I’m glad I did, as ‘Emita Ox’ is a superb album. In fact, listening back to it again now, ‘Special Treat’ is actually pretty good too. I must have had wax in my ears.
Opening with ‘Float’, which starts all shoegaze-y, but wait, three minutes in, it suddenly transforms into something altogether rawer and impolite. With cheese grater guitar and vocals, single ‘0%’ is the very opposite of the sort of Pop Punk and Alt Rock dross we get bombarded with from across the pond. Reminiscent of Mandy, Indiana in places, ‘Emita Ox’ is a well crafted album, mixed, sliced and diced like an aural Lasagne. Sometime it sounds sweet, full of harmonies, and chiming guitars, but always teetering on the edge of something else. Hello Mary have matured rapidly as a band. Their slightly giggly grunge schoolgirl image belies the fact that this is a band who can seriously kick it with the right production in place, as it is here. Meeting as teenagers, they have grown up together, and in the process, found their own space, a mix of fuzzed guitar, harmonies, pugilistic drums (“knotty”, as they describe them) and a great scuzzy, guttural, bass sound. I’m sure I spotted horns in the background on ‘Down My Life’ too (probably a synth or sample).
Songs are also generally getting shorter to match modern Goldfish level attention spans, that’s true, but a couple of the tracks here barely make one and a half minutes, for example the sublime ‘Heavy Sleeper’ with its twanging double bass line, and ‘Hiyeahi’, all 1.24 minutes of it, distorted and effects laden. It is the antithesis of the track that follows, ‘Bubble’, the album’s penultimate. That’s back to the shoegaze vibe, but there is always a harder edge lurking in the wings and its not long before the track morphs into lurching, distorted, echo’d gutter shop guitar and clattering pot and pan drums, topped off by off kilter lyrics and harmonies, where you can feel singer Stella Wave’s eyes swivelling round in her skull to stare straight at you. ‘Emita Ox’ closes out with the shimmering ‘Everything We Do’ and it’s all over. Its an impressive sound and one that doesn’t bother asking, but just pushes in and takes what it wants.
Oxes are strong and resilient, and much of Emita Ox’s subject matter references Hello Mary’s experiences as individuals, pushing back against the knocks and keeping on going until they triumph. Girls in bands (boys too) often sing about their friendships with others in the band and talk about how they are stronger together (until they split, that is). That’s why you form a band, right? But in this case, the sum of the parts is definitely greater and, I’ll say it again, there is a definite craft at work here. Hello Mary think carefully about what they are doing, inject originality into it, shake it up, and wait for it to fizz out of the bottle. I watched a Youtube interview with them out of interest and between gasping at the ineptitude of the interviewer and his inane line of questioning (why are backstage interviews always so poor?), what came across was thoughtfulness, and almost an embarrassment at having to explain themselves to such an idiot. Better to let the music do the talking, and in the case of ‘Emita Ox’ and Hello Mary, it is a conversation well worth having.
See Hello Mary on tour in 2024
Sept. 4 - The Shacklewell Arms - London, UK *
Sept 5 - Brixton Windmill - London, UK *
Sept 11 - Rock City - Nottingham, UK %
Sept 12 - Barrowland Ballroom - Glasgow, UK %
Sept 13 - Bristol SWX - Bristol, UK %
Sept 14 - Roundhouse - London, UK %
Oct 4 - Barboza - Seattle, WA *
Oct 6 - Polaris Hall - Portland, OR *
Oct 9 - Brick & Mortar (Popscene) - San Francisco, CA *
Oct 10 - The Troubadour - Los Angeles, CA *
Oct 12 - Best Friends Forever Festival - Las Vegas, NV
Oct 14 - Marquis Theatre - Denver, CO *
Oct 16 - Raccoon Motel - Davenport, IA *
Oct 17 - 7th Street Entry - Minneapolis, MN *
Oct 19 - Schubas Tavern - Chicago, IL *
Oct 20 - Lager House - Detroit, MI *
Oct 21 - The Garrison - Toronto, ON *
Oct 24 - Bowery Ballroom - New York, NY *
Oct 25 - Ukie Club - Philadelphia, PA *
Oct 26 - Warsaw - - Brooklyn, NY %
Oct 27 - Songbyrd - Washington, DC *
Oct 29 - Pinhook - Durham, NC *
Oct 30 - Masquerade-Purgatory - Atlanta, GA *
Nov 1 - Andy's - Denton, TX *
Nov 2 - White Oak Music Hall (upstairs) - Houston, TX *
Nov 3 - Levitation Festival - Austin, TX
* headlining
^ with Julie
% support for American Football
