The Mary Onettes (Sweden) – Without this body (single/future album track)

Marionettes? Am I on the right track or barking up the wrong tree?

What I do know is that The Mary Onettes are dream pop ‘veterans’ and that they’ve been out of it for a while but are progressively making a comeback, and that ‘Without this body’ is the fourth and final single from the forthcoming album ‘SWORN’, which will be released on November 14th.

The Mary Onettes formed in Jönköping in the early 2000s and quickly gained acclaim with their blend of Scandinavian melancholy, shoe gaze and cinematic pop, before several years of silence set in.

They’ve even got a Myspace account. That’s wonderful. I take my hat off to them.

I can sometimes get a handle on lyrics fairly quickly but on this occasion I struggled. They are billed as “existential” but that word has several meanings.

At one end of the scale this could be no more than a break up song, and at the other, one or more of the characters in ‘Without this body’ could be dead without knowing it, as if they are in the film Sixth Sense.

Or they could be preparing for the end of one of both of them.

It’s all a bit vague but perhaps that’s the intention.

And that vagueness sits in contrast to the directness of the melodies, which could have emerged from just about any of the last five decades. ‘Timelessness’ is certainly part of their armoury.

I’m tempted to compare them with Peter Bjorn and Jon but that would be too easy, as well as probably being quite inaccurate!

There are slight hints of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark as well, probably nearer the mark, but only lightweight, half-formed ones.

Applying a boxing analogy my first exposure to The Mary Onettes tells me that they’ve been away, they’ve replenished their batteries and got match fit, they’ve come fast out of their corner in their comeback bout, looking to land an early knockout blow, but have got themselves dragged into a brawl in which their best punches aren’t quite picking up the points like they used to.

That they aren’t quite back with “full force” yet but that the next bout will see them floating and stinging again like they used to.

In the meantime, enjoy ‘Without this body’.

Find them on:

Website: https://www.themaryonettes.net/