Exclusive: The Mary Veils Stream “Eyes” From Upcoming “Esoteric Hex” Album

Today, Philadelphia garage punk four-piece The Mary Veils have shared Eyes, the second single off their forthcoming album, Esoteric Hex, that is due out on the 25th March via PNKSLM Records. 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, that was re-released by PNKSLM Records 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 fruit. The furious pair of freewheeling singles, Home Video and Rowboat. were amongst a glut of songs that came together at breakneck pace, and made up half of the first four-track EP from The Mary Veils as a full band, 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 the band 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. The fact that this lineup’s cascade of creativity was to be stemmed by the global events of the past couple of years means that The Mary Veils are now very much a coiled spring, both as a studio entity and as a live band. Esoteric Hex represents the laying down of a marker, after which there’ll be plenty more to come.

“The song is loosely based on something I read on Kelpius’s society of religious monks -a bunch of German doomsday fanatics from the 17th century who ended up living in a cave outside of Philadelphia. As well as incorrectly predicting the end of the world, Kelpius wrote his own music, and has been referred to as ‘Pennsylvania’s first composer.’ The riff was banging around for a while in my head, and we like the feeling of existential dread. Most people have eyes. Most use them for seeing. Believe half of what you see. Seeing isn’t always believing.”

You can pre-order Esoteric Hex via PNKSLM Records