Right out of the gate, Brooklyn alt-rock trio Hello Mary conjure the sound and ethos of the bygone ’90s, when alternative and indie rock dominated the culture. For the past several years, the band — guitarist/vocalist Helena Straight, drummer/vocalist Stella Wave, and bassist Mikaela Oppenheimer — have been refining their approach, at first introducing themselves with the riffy and harmonic Ginger in 2019 and then striving for grittier, live-minded cuts on last year’s self-titled LP. On Emita Ox, which is out today via Frenchkiss Records, Hello Mary plunge further into thick distortion and trance-y altered states as they continue to assert themselves as a force within NYC’s sprawling music scene. The LP twists and turns, reflecting how much the band’s musical palettes have grown in just a year. Brought up by ’90s alt-rock, grunge, and 2010s indie, the trio pull out different references, this time drawing from ultra-loud, experimental acts like black midi and Swans to contrast the record’s driftier moments.
“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 says. “The songwriting and recording process was a very heavy time that I will never forget.” You can hear that unfurl across the LP’s 11 songs. From Wave’s ripping screams on “0%” (her first time ever unleashing that type of catharsis on record) to the hallucinogenic lullaby “Heavy Sleeper,” Hello Mary are skilled at bringing varying moods and tones to the fore — establishing the LP as an engaging listen from start to end.
Read more: MILLY explore the influences behind their second album, Your Own Becoming
Below, Hello Mary led us through the meaning behind every song on Emita Ox.
“Float”
HELLO MARY: As long as we’ve had all the songs ready for this album, we knew we wanted “Float” to be the opener. It has a weirdly Western feel to it, which is funny and not typical of our other songs, but it also showcases the different elements of our band. We think the energy shift at the end of the song also makes it a good first track, because it lets the listener know that there’s more in store for them. But only if they’re patient enough to get to that point.
“0%”
HELLO MARY: We were in our practice space, jamming, and the song just emerged. We knew we wanted to write something a bit more angular and cutthroat, and leading with bass/drums heavy instrumentation felt exciting. It was pretty much figured out by the time we recorded, although the vocals took a turn. They became longer, drawn-out screams rather than short, shouty vocals. Stella had never even tried screaming before recording some of the takes that ended up in the song. Plus, we added more layers and embellishments to flesh out the track, like multiple bass layers, vibraphone and triangle.
“Three”
HELENA STRAIGHT: “Three” was written in 2023 after a persistent writer’s block. It is now one of my favorite Hello Mary songs, and in many ways I think I needed to experience that uninspired rut to come up with something as satisfying and involved as “Three.” When I started writing it, I could vaguely hear how I wanted the song to sound in my head, but couldn’t quite execute it on guitar, so I wrote the guitar part slowly and sloppily until I got better at it. From there, all the other sections came to me fairly quickly. Initially, the piano part in the outro was a melody that I thought I’d sing, but when I tried to sing it it sounded too grandiose or something… so I figured it out on piano, which I had never done before.
HELLO MARY: “Three” was probably the least fleshed out song before we brought it to the studio, so the night before we recorded it, we used the live room as a rehearsal space to work out any last kinks. Another cool tidbit about this song is that we’ve all had involvement in the piano part — Helena wrote it, Stella played it on the record, and Mikaela plays it live.
“Down My Life”
STRAIGHT: “Down My Life” is one of the few songs on the album that was inspired by a specific event in my life. I was 18 when I wrote it, making childish decisions, and therefore learning lots of lessons. The process of turning a moment that felt so catastrophic into this song helped me understand what happened and put things into perspective. Recording “Down My Life” in the studio was also special because I had a very specific vision for the production and performance, and Alex Farrar helped carry it out perfectly.
STELLA WAVE: We took this song that was originally brought in as somewhat mellow and acoustic, and intercepted the verses with bass and drum sections, giving it a more angular feel to it. This is also my favorite drum sound on the record — achieved by placing a giant kick drum in front of the regular kick drum to create a huge sound.
“Knowing You”
STRAIGHT: I wrote “Knowing You” in a staircase of my high school senior year. We’ve been playing it live for about three years now. For me, it’s one of the most simple songs to play and was one of the simpler songs to write as well. I had a lot to say at that time in my life. I love playing it live, and I love the bass part so much.
“Heavy Sleeper”
HELLO MARY: We’d been playing “Heavy Sleeper” for years before recording it. When we tried recording it the way we’d been playing it live, which just was our typical three-piece style, it wasn’t translating for some reason. So we took a completely different route and stripped it way down, removing two other sections of the song and taking out the guitar and drums. We replaced those instruments with vocal layers, computerized organ, and upright bass.
“Footstep Misstep”
WAVE: I’ve been practicing following my intuition rather than adopting what other people want me to think. 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 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. It’s definitely one of the more energetic songs on the album, which makes it a cool opener for side B.
“Courtesy”
WAVE: “Courtesy” is about a deeply personal situation, so I’m not going to go into depth about specific meaning. Vaguely, it’s about how all people are capable of being shitty and doing bad things — but since things can’t be undone, it’s not worth it to carry around the weight. Better to accept, let things unfold, and choose how to move forward. This is definitely my most vulnerable moment on the album, and was my first time recording guitar on a Hello Mary song, so it’s interesting and kind of nerve-wracking having it be out on display!
HELLO MARY: Recording this song was one of the more challenging ones on the album. We all had different ideas for how to approach production and instrumentation, which led us to record two different versions of the song, but we are all satisfied with the final product.
“Hiyeahi”
MIKAELA OPPENHEIMER: Recorded my friend Teeka saying hi and made this little song in my college dorm room while I was procrastinating doing homework. The original one is much longer with more sections. Also when I reversed the “hi,” it sounded like “yeah,” which was crazy, so that’s what you’re hearing.
“Bubble”
WAVE: This song is sort of about my old apartment. I wrote it during a very weird time in my life where I felt pretty isolated and was spending a lot of time at home. My sadness was definitely coloring my perception of the apartment. It became a depression pit of sorts… and the building was so old that part of the ceiling actually came crashing to the floor one day, so there’s some literal meaning, too. Originally, I home-recorded the song by myself on my computer with just acoustic guitar, vocals, and light percussion, and it sounded very different than it does now, after adding electric guitars, drums and bass. Upon bringing the song to Mikaela and Helena, they proposed incorporating an instrumental section in the middle of the song, which you can now hear in the recording that ended up on the album. I think these verse guitar chords are perhaps my favorite guitar part I’ve written so far.
“Everything We Do”
STRAIGHT: This is the oldest song on the album. I wrote “Everything We Do” when I was 14, and one summer I recorded it on GarageBand and put it out on Bandcamp. Mikaela and Stella really liked it, but we never expected it to be a Hello Mary song. Especially because of our musical style at the time. Turns out, they still really liked it five years later, so we decided to give it a go in Asheville. The bass and drum parts were added a couple months before the studio, and the form altered a little bit in the studio. I think it’s really sweet that it closes out the album. It blows my mind.
