St. Mary's

St. Mary's started as a solo project for rural Louisiana native, Chad Merritt, and now consists of Chad and bandmate, Tracy Uba. Ghostly vocals, reverbed arrangements, sparce dark lyrics, and hints of dissonance and noise.
St. Mary's second album, "Hear Those Voices Call..." is now available! Limited, hand-made and hand-numbered, edition of 500 copies. 9 songs of dreamy, lush, loveliness. Mastered by the infamous Kramer. Tracklisting:
No. 4
Black Bird
This is Where
All in Dreams
No. 5
When All Your Sisters Cry
And She Burns
The Haunting of Your Bones
No. 6
St. Mary's first full-length, "Oh Tremble", is now being re-released, having been mastered by Kramer, and featuring all new artwork (as seen below). You can order a copy directly before the cd is available with an online retailer or stores.
Tracklisting is as follows...
1
Up In Flames
A Darkness
Sarah Said
2
River of Tears
I'm So Sorry
Ghosts
3
Details about new website and upcoming shows soon to follow.
Contact for St. Mary'[email protected]
*Reviews for St. Mary's "Oh Tremble"*
(UrbanPollution.com)
"...With song titles like “River of Tears” and “Up in Flames,” it’s hard not to envision sadness and devastation. The tone is meditatively melancholic though, not doom-ridden. St. Mary’s has been compared to Julee Cruise and Angelo Badalamenti’s work on the Twin Peaks soundtrack, and it’s warranted because of their shared unsettling prettiness. “Sarah Said,” which is reminiscent of Low’s early work, utilizes a 1960’s soul-style guitar melody slowed down to a crawl and then throws in oblique lyrics that convey either terror or tranquility. The vocals themselves are a bit of mystery; if the lyrics were not written on the sleeve, it would all be an enigma because the vox are heavily layered with effects and lie deep in the mix. Also, the vocals are fully attributed to Merritt, yet they sound wholly feminine (hence the Cruise comparisons). Fortunately, like a David Lynch film, these anomalies don’t confuse the listener as much as paint an intriguing and mysterious landscape..."
(Dream Magazine)
"...From haunted music box melodies, to dreamily hypnotic balladry; like Eraserhead-era Peter Ivers fronting Low on a crisp pre-dawn winter morning, their breath billowing steam in the air. This is all the work of one man band Chad Merritt, who utilizes simple ingredients to great effect. Spare guitar, subtle keyboards, minimal percussion and his high androgynous angelic vocals..."
(Somewherecold.com)
..." Everything about Oh Tremble is striking, from the hand-crafted artwork, to the androgynous vocals of Merritt (sounding more like a soft female’s vocals than a man’s), to the tension laden yet softly droning songs. Oh Tremble combines elements of shoegaze, dreampop, slowcore, ambient music, and at times sounds like the most slowed-down and stretched out Cocteau Twins soundtrack one has ever heard. The CD begins with the foreboding 1 (the first in a series of three instrumental interludes on the CD. Featuring only a simple echoed piano line encased in eerie drones, 1 is an unnerving introduction to St. Mary’s’ sound. “Up in Flames” is the first true song on Oh Tremble, featuring Merritt’s strange but undeniably beautiful vocals singing over another echoed piano that is joined later by soft drones and even a musical saw. The mood is soft, delicate, and sullen on this simple yet gorgeously faint song. Next up is the (slightly) more conventional “A Darkness”. Featuring lyrics such as, “follow me into the night”, “A Darkness” presents itself as a reverb-drenched slowcore song, similar to Coastal’s most quiet moments, but instead featuring Merritt’s otherworldly falsetto. “Sarah Said” is a dreamy and fuller instrumental song, featuring light fuzzy drones supporting a simple but elegant guitar melody and very lightly brushed percussion. Somewhere in the mix of “Sarah Said” are barely audible half-whispered vocals that are content to hide in the background of the song. 2 appears after, with dark drones breaking the supple and faint mood established by the previous songs. As if on cue, the song that follows, “River on Tears”, is quite the study in darkness and tension. Disembodied background voices float “Oh what have I done?” over simple keyboards and drones for almost 2 ½ minutes. The slide guitar, brushed percussion, and gentle vocals of “I’m So Sorry” settle the listener back down a notch. This five-minute song is brilliantly fragile, sounding throughout the whole song as if it could drift off into nothingness at any moment. Indeed, the song simply drifts off at the end, and the aptly-titled “Ghosts” begins with Merritt’s vocals mixed relatively up-front (compared to the rest of the CD). A simple guitar line and strange spiralling noises complement Merritt’s voice. 3 rounds out the credited songs on Oh Tremble, with an elegant piano line supported by soft drones. This song would have been a beautiful and peaceful way to end Oh Tremble, but Merritt has provided a chilling hidden postlude that begs for a repeated listen (only for the brave). St. Mary’s has created a whimsical work of art that sounds like it could be the soundtrack to a slow-moving horror movie. Through its repertoire of simple melodies, drones, reverb-soaked guitars, and alien-sounding vocals, Oh Tremble showcases a daring artist executing a singular musical vision. Oh Tremble is certainly one of the most interesting releases we’ve had arrive in our mailbox at Somewhere Cold. And not only is the CD interesting in a novelty kind of way, but it vividly immerses us into the strange, eerie, dark and sometimes heavenly world of Chad Merritt..."
(Tonevendor.com)
"...St. Mary's is above all overwhelmingly sad and sorrowful - gut-wrenching beauty and sadness permeate every song. Such topics are covered here as death, darkness, weeping, and setting someone on fire; one track, entitled "River of Tears", contains five words as its lyrics: "Oh what, have I done?". While the vocals are nearly unitelligible breathy utterings (lyrics included, though), the emotion rips through the instrumentation awash in thick thick thick layers of atmosphere... The atmospheric ecstasy of Julee Cruise, the hushed lofi elegance of Empress, and the painstakingly paced melodies of Low. All of the vocals and instruments are performed by one lone man, Chad Merritt. He pulls in elements of shoegaze (extremely blissed-out, reverbed vocals), "slowcore" (deliberate slow-paced rhythms, sparse brushed drums), drowsy lullabies (airy guitars, ambient textures, reverbed piano and organ), even Elephant6 (musical saw)..."
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A Darkness