mary in the junkyard - Role Model Hermit Review
Years of relentless touring and fearless experimentation have produced a debut that feels astonishingly complete.
Role Model Hermit doesn’t really sound like a debut album, a compliment that no doubt owes plenty to South London outfit Mary in the Junkyard’s relentless workrate. The album’s release will be immediately celebrated with ten in-store shows across the UK whilst the ‘proper’ tour later in the year consists of 24 shows spanning the continent and the states. That gives a mere glimpse into the graft that the band have become accustomed to. Seemingly endless Windmill shows, two months straight in the states with Wet Leg, fundraisers, secret festival sets, impromptu shows under fake names… the band have racked up more stage time in a couple of years than many bands would in a decade. As such, their first full length record is ambitious and complex but uncluttered. Whilst many great debuts thrill with youthful abandon and charming naivety, this feels like a band that have already undergone several metamorphosis and can put forward a realised imagining of their sound.
One of the most captivating qualities of the record is its ability to pack so much into minimalist compositions and lyrical forms. When Clari Freeman-Taylor repeats “It is yours babe, you deserve it” on opener ‘Mantra III’, her tone oscillates between comforting and sinister. In the background, her two bandmates backdrop it with grounding hand drums and fractured and mazy strings in the foreground. It’s a track that evokes so much without ever feeling like it’s trying to. Late album cut ‘Candelabra’, written when Freeman-Taylor was just seventeen is similarly sparse and emotive. ‘Crash Landing’, the best of the singles on the LP, can be filed similarly too. The band’s ability to tell stories and set atmospheres with very little is impressive, but what’s perhaps more important is their restraint in not overrelying on those moments; the album is not short of maximalist offerings.
The unnerving ‘Thou Shall Spout’, with its eerie strings set to an ancient folk tale of a father risking his limbs to feed his family, is one example of the band bringing much bigger sounds into focus. It’s a track more likely to be written by a band on the books at fine trad folk revivalists Broadside Hacks than by a ‘Windmill band’, which serves to highlight the breadth of ideas and ambition at play here. At other times, such as on the deeply infectious ‘Blood’ or the trip hop-indebted single ‘New Muscles’, the band are able to balance more lavish moments with real pop sensibilities.
That understanding of balance is really what makes this such a remarkable record. It is, perhaps, the most obvious fruits of their labour. Many bands will pick away at the first great idea they have on their debut album, which in many ways is fair enough. But there’s a relentless drive to explore new avenues here. 2024 EP This Old House was an attention-demanding enough introduction but it felt like a seismic step forward when singles ‘Drains’ and ‘Midori’ came out last year. Any anxieties about the band using up their best ideas before their first full length are squashed entirely here. There’s an intimidating arsenal of sonic and linguistic directions that the band pull in whilst managing to maintain a coherence, perhaps because that relentless touring experience has allowed them to road test all of the ideas on show across the record.
Dark fables and mythological imagery are called upon as often as bitingly stark realism, whilst tender moments deserve their place as much as the many punchier offerings. Role Model Hermit is a miraculous balancing act which more than justifies being one of the most highly-anticipated debuts of the year.