Album Review: Hello Mary – 'Emita Ox'
It's been quite a journey for Hello Mary up to the release of their third album Emita Ox earlier this month. As the band put it themselves, their past five years together growing up as bandmates and their arrival into young adulthood first meeting as teenagers in 2019, the band became fast friends through the pandemic—a global crisis that made coming of age feel even more weighty and complicated. “This album represents a period of time that’s very meaningful to us. The songs are related to things that we all know about, even if it’s not out on the table for everyone else”.
‘Down My Life’ from Emita Ox is ominous sounding with thunderous guitars and eery vocals seemingly driving towards an impending doom that wouldn’t feel out of place as a thriller film score. Citing prog rock bands such as Radiohead as sources of inspiration, Hello Mary’s heavy, at times beautifully melancholic sound is perhaps subconsciously if not intentionally the product of a painful period of struggle. During this time, their world view was shaped by a disorientating journey during a pandemic that creatively was a complex challenge to navigate.
‘On Knowing You’, a distinctive blend of dirgy bass and dreamy, heavenly vocals is particularly Radiohead esque, combined with a melodic looping guitar creating a wonderfully nuanced prog rock soundscape. Heavy Sleeper at the halfway mark is a trippy interlude, its slightly hypnotic guitar chord and angelic vocals working to great effect to evoke a strange minute long lullaby.
‘Footstep Misstep’ is a brilliantly chaotic wall of noise, the frenetic fits and bursts as the tracks speeds and slows surely making for one the album’s most compelling tracks that will translate well on the live stage. ‘Hiyeahi’ sounds like a traumatic awakening from discombobulating accident, adding their trademark blend of surrealness that it is a recurrent theme throughout the album, closing with the enigmatic words ‘The sun was in the shape of heart’ as if softly spoken in the awakening of a vivid dream. Creating rich soundscapes, Emita Ox is a bold and bewildering album sure sound phenomenal on the live stage.
Words by Brendan Sharp
