Hello Mary Releases New Album "Emita Ox"

Currently on Tour in the UK with American Football

New York City's Hello Mary released their long-awaited album Emita Ox via Frenchkiss Records.

With a sound that finds a balance between intense distortion and ethereal atmospheres, Hello Mary's latest LP broadens their unique world of fearless, masterful alt-rock. The band co-produced the album alongside Alex Farrar (MJ Lenderman, Indigo De Souza, Wednesday, Snail Mail) in Asheville, NC.

Speaking on Emita Ox the band said: "We are proud to finally release this album. In many ways, it feels like a debut, since it’s a departure from the songwriting and production styles of our other released music. We wanted Emita Ox to be cohesive, but our first focus was to give each song the specific attention it required. The songs being somewhat different from one another is something we may have shied away from previously, but now it feels the most true to our tastes and vision."

Further speaking on the recording process behind Emita Ox Hello Mary said, "Alex’s production and our desire to build out the songs with new instruments allowed us to achieve the sounds we envisioned before going into the studio. Some of the songs on this album date back years, while others were written only a couple of weeks before recording. In other words, Emita Ox spans our band’s existence. It is a heavy album to us. It’s special to have the people you’ve grown up with help you turn experiences into art."

Along with the release of Emita Ox, Hello Mary also share a music video for the song "Footstep Misstep". Eager fans were able to catch a glimpse of the song and music video earlier in the week by texting the mysterious number that appeared on the band's social channels. Speaking on the lyrics behind "Footstep Misstep" drummer and vocalist Stella Wave says: "I’ve been practicing following my intuition rather than adopting what other people want me to think." She continues, "It's been a prominent recurring theme for me this year, so I was trying to encapsulate the way that feels for me in these lyrics."

The band speaks more on the composition of Footstep Misstep, "The instrumental parts are pretty involved and satisfying to play, and fleshing the song out in the studio was really fun since there are so many different interweaving parts." Speaking on the music video the band says: "The video concept was brought to us by the director and producer Isaac Roberts and Evan Arbic as a way to expand their previously created goblin universe. We loved the idea and basically let them take the reins with it."

Hello Mary is the trio of Helena Straight, Stella Wave, and Mikaela Oppenheimer. They previously shared "Down My Life," “Three,” and “0%” which have drawn attention from, among others, The New York Times, The Line of Best Fit, CLASH, So Young, Rolling Stone, Far Out, and Paste. Emita Ox is the follow-up to the band’s acclaimed 2023 self-titled LP, which Rolling Stone called one of the year’s "sharpest, noisiest debuts". Since its release the band have ripped into prominence with their fuzzed-out anthems, establishing a darkly playful edge all their own.

Hello Mary have been playing songs from Emita Ox and other fan favorites as they hit the road in support of the new album. The band hit the ground running on their first performances in the UK, tightly packing their tent at End Of The Road Festival, going on to play equally popular sets at Manchester Psych Fest and Edinburgh Psych Fest. Momentum was not lost as the band swiftly followed these sets with two sold-out London headline dates at The Shacklewell Arms and Brixton's famed, The Windmill.

The band's UK run has continued, supporting Midwest-Emo luminaries American Football on their LP1 25th anniversary tour at both Nottingham's Rock City on the 11th of September and Glasgow's Barrowland Ballroom last night. The band play two more shows on the tour, tonight in Bristol's SWX before playing their biggest crowd to date at Camden's legendary Roundhouse. Hello Mary have also announced an Autumn North America tour with dates kicking off in October in Seattle, WA and concluding in November in Houston, TX. Additionally, the band is confirmed for Las Vegas’ Best Friends Forever Fest on the 11th - 13th of October and Austin’s Levitation Festival on the 3rd of November.

On Emita Ox, Hello Mary pushes harder into heavy distortion and psychedelic dreamscapes, as they build out their singular universe of gutsy strain of rock. The LP’s labyrinthine production reflects how the band’s musical tastes have expanded from Elliott Smith and Radiohead to encompass experimental post-rock acts like Black Midi and Swans. “This album encompasses a lot of our inspirations,” says Oppenheimer. “It also shows what we're like as a trio, collectively.”

The project reveals the band leveling up as musicians and composers. Recorded in early 2024 in Asheville, North Carolina, the band played all the instruments on Emita Ox and produced it alongside Alex Farrar (MJ Lenderman, Indigo De Souza, Wednesday, Snail Mail). The member’s contributions to the songwriting and production bleed into each other, but the album is a showcase of their individual strengths: Helena Straight’s ethereal vocal melodies and gritty guitar riffs, Wave’s emotive vocals and knotty drum patterns, and Oppenheimer’s diabolical basslines and experimentation with electronic production. “We map out all the sections beforehand, we like to write intricate parts that complement each other,” says Wave.

Featuring songs that span from 2018 to 2023, Emita Ox is also a document of Hello Mary’s 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,” Wave explains. “The songwriting and recording process was a very heavy time that I will never forget.” Even if the lyrics touch on serious topics, the band maintains a core sense of play and exploration: jamming is their way of working through these feelings in a way that’s “easy and fun,” Straight says.

Created amid these emotions of frustration and camaraderie, Emita Ox sees Hello Mary ruthlessly diving into a thrilling sound of catharsis. On “0%,” Wave launches into piercing screams for the first time. Oppenheimer says that her bandmate’s intense shrieks “makes the song full of energy and really exciting to play,” especially in the song’s breakdown which ends in a cacophony of noise and vibraphone. Meanwhile, “Down My Life,” which Straight says she wrote after “one of the saddest experiences” of her life, features her angelic vocals on top of warped piano and menacing bass. The band even veers towards prog-rock on songs like “Footstep Misstep,” where complex instrumentation and Wave’s dynamic vocals evoke a world in between fantasy and nightmare.

The LP’s title, Emita Ox, is referenced in “Three,” whose lyrics sound plucked from a fairy tale. “‘Three’ was written after I’d been in a creative rut that lasted a couple months,” says Straight. “I wasn’t focused on getting any message across. My intention was just to write a full song, whether I ended up liking it or not." Though it doesn’t have an intended meaning, the imagery of the girl Emita and her ox is fitting for the band: Oxes are strong and resilient, and much of Emita Ox’s subject matter reveals Hello Mary’s perseverance, as they choose to move through life’s burdens instead of getting beaten down by them. But oxes are also dependable—much like how they see each other and their relationship. “There’s the lyric that goes, ‘Woke to the hands of three/Stitching and fixing me,’” Wave says to Straight, quoting her own words back to her. “I always picture me and Mikaela with you.” It’s a testament to how they’ve witnessed each other’s heartaches and mended each other back up—through their music and their friendship.