PREMIERE: The Mary Veils share new single 'Bone Blossom Green' and announce album

Tuesday, January 18, 2022 - 07:51

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Thomas

We are very happy to share ‘Bone Blossom Green,’ the new single by Philadelphia's garage punk four-piece The Mary Veils. The song is a fizzy rock ‘n roll tune that slowly slithers in your brain, driven forward by a relentless drum beat. And I’m not sure if glossy, lo-fi riffage was already a thing, but it is now bound to be. ‘Bone Blossom Green’ is the first single taken off the band’s upcoming LP ’Esoteric Hex, due March 25 via PNKSLM Recordings.

"'Bone Blossom Green' was based off a riff we had floating around for awhile. Originally we thought it would just be that main riff, for the entirety of the song but it kind of took a different turn while writing,” says the band of the new single. “It was one of the more challenging ones for us to finish, but we think it really showcases us as a band, and in a way highlights how we’ve developed musical and what our sound has become."

‘Esoteric Hex’ showcases The Mary Veils as the band they were always supposed to be. What began as the solo project of frontman Brian Von Uff is now a fully-fledged, incendiary punk four-piece, with drummer Evan Wall, guitarist Drew Mann and bassist Justin Mansor rounding out the new lineup. Von Uff’s debut EP under the Mary Veils name, 2017's Slacker Paint (re-released by PNKSLM last year) so enthused Wall as to tempt him back behind the kit after a break from drumming, and caught the attention of Mann and Mansor of fellow Philadelphia noiseniks Hot Lunch, who quickly followed Wall in jumping on board. “And it’s been like Beatlemania ever since,” laughs Mann.

Such is the shared musical language between the four that their first jams immediately, and almost wordlessly, bore fruitin the form of the first four-track EP, last November’s Somewhere Over the Rowhome. “I probably did it the wrong way around,” says Von Uff of the jump from solo project to four-piece. “I wish these dudes were around from the beginning, because they bring so much personality to the songs, and the new material came together really easily.”

If the EP lit the fuse on a new era for the Mary Veils, then consider Esoteric Hex the explosion. The band’s full-length debut is a scintillating ten-track exercise in punk-inflected garage rock, one that takes the raw energy that defined Somewhere Over the Rowhome and uses it as a foundation for Von Uff’s ultimate vision for the group. “We recorded a lot of these songs around the same time as the EP, so there’s a similar feel to them, but I think the songs on Esoteric Hex really fit together. There’s more of a cohesiveness to it. I feel like Somewhere Over the Rowhome was a good showcase of our sound, whereas Esoteric Hex is a complete piece of work.”

The album was tracked swiftly and entirely live, within a few months of the new lineup coming together, over a number of weekends at Jessie Gimbel’s basement studio in Upper Darby, PA. Once Esoteric Hex had been mixed by Cory Hanson and Jeff Zeigler, who between them have worked with the likes of The War on Drugs, Ty Segall and Kurt Vile, The Mary Veils were ready to unleash this mission statement of a record upon the world, only for fate to intervene. “We’ve been sitting on the album since the start of the pandemic,” says Von Uff.