Okay, hear me out… Veil of Maya has been releasing singles steadily for their upcoming album, [M]other, which is set to release on May 12th. I’ve been pretty excited for new VoM for awhile now, and even though some of the singles aren’t my favorite of their discography, ‘Mother pt. 4‘ is incredibly sick.
Anyway, on to my main point: I have been reading the lyrics, listening to the singles, and watching the music videos, and I think that two things are true. The first is that the album is going to be a concept album, and the second is that it’s a little bit about space. Actually I’m not entirely sure about the second one but I wanted to talk about it anyway. This realization hit me while listening to ‘Mother pt. 4’, as the heavy part of the intro dropped and thought: “I’ve heard this before.” So I started listening around and realized where I had heard it; The cadence underneath the first harsh vocal section in this song is the same as the beginning of ‘Nyu.’
The main themes found in the singles that have been released so far are less about space and more about things like inequality and political corruption. lets talk about how these are found in the newer singles (and some old music) and then come back to the space part later.
First of all, the tandem music videos for ‘Red Fur‘ and ‘Mother pt. 4‘ show impoverished people in the streets consuming weird-looking drugs in a dystopian futuristic setting. This implies that the story is taking place sometime in the future where the quality of life for the lower class has deteriorated drastically, however, it could also be calling attention to the fact that the US has a growing homelessness and wealth disparity issue already happening right now. In ‘Red Fur’ specifically, we see the members of the band looking like they just broke out of either prison or a mental institution, and then they go to something that resembles some sort of heist planning session. meanwhile this meeting gets interrupted by a bunch of ninjas presumably lead by Spencer Sotelo.
Other than just the existence of impoverished people in the streets, it’s also the scenes of wealthy-looking people that invoke this theme of inequality. These people are nicely-dressed and wearing masquerade ball-style masks, which is probably supposed to be symbolism since masquerade balls were held by royalty in the late medieval era, and the word masquerade literally means pretense or ‘a false show.’ We also see them taking a different color drug than the people in the streets, all while they watch Lukas Magyar screaming lyrics to them on camera:
Are you happy now
That I’m bleeding?
Are you better now?
The webs keep weaving
I really love the “webs keep weaving” line because we all have heard the saying before, but rarely do we think about where it actually came from. The original saying is: “Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.” This came from early nineteenth century Scottish writer, Sir Walter Scott. It simply means that when we lie we often start a domino effect of dishonesty that just grows more complex and messy as time goes on. I think this is meant to be a statement about the current US political system and media, as it seems like every day we find out more things politicians did wrong or lied about.
So let’s go back to the statement I made earlier about the connection between ‘Mother pt. 4’ and ‘Nyu.’ Assuming I’m correct, and this section underneath the harsh vocals is meant to be a callback to Matriarch, then why is that? All of the songs on Matriarch are named after female characters that guitarist Marc Okubo liked from various things like video games and comics. Nyu refers to the main character of the series Elfen Lied, and is both the protagonist and an anti-hero. Also known as Lucy/Kaede (another song on that album is named Lucy), she is the perfect representation of someone who was treated poorly and thus treated others poorly in return. I think this theme is something Veil of Maya has always had apparent in their music; Vengeance, an eye for an eye, etc. We see this in songs like ‘Pool Spray’ and ‘Graymail’ off of False Idols as well:
To the honest man I’ve broken apart
But they fail to understand that
Their ridicule has made me what I am
Those lines from Graymail convey a similar sentiment to how Lucy/Kaede views the world, where they are just doing what they were pushed to do while everyone else only sees them as a monster. While this is a bit separated from the political corruption they often talk about, I think the two do connect together.
The new songs from the upcoming album seem to blend these ideas together; Violence enacted on the dishonest and evil is justified. That being said, I don’t think the members of Veil of Maya are violent people who want to inflict pain on others, but I can see how it’s easy to get heated about something that really bothers you and write a hyperbolic violent song about it.
So let me return to my statement that hopefully this concept album is about space. We’ve already established that the album will have similar themes to Matriarch and otherwise many themes have been established in the singles that are already out. ‘Mother pt. 4’ obviously has space references in it, like the following:
What are we soon to face?
Deep space, pressurized intake
Deprive me of oxygen
No, not again
This directly references going to space, and the rest of the song is full of space references. So now you’re thinking, “Oh but it’s just a metaphor for climate change and/or the constant oppression in society!” and while you’re probably right, you’re actually wrong. This verse of ‘Red Fur’ convinces me that this album could be about space, for real:
There will be an end to witness
There’s nothing that will make a difference
Is there even life for us out there?
For us out there?
It’s extremely obvious that when they say “out there” they mean space and NOT something normal like the known world. both of these songs vaguely refer to life as we know it – on Earth – becoming too difficult and not worth living, but ponder at the possibility of life “out there,” as well as saying that “life finds a way.”
If you’re not totally convinced then let me offer you this: When they say “Bury them out in the valley” in ‘Synthwave Vegan,’ what valley specifically do you think they’re talking about? I think it’s pretty obvious they mean the Mariner Valley on Mars that runs about 7km (4 miles) deep into the surface of the planet.
On top of all of this, I’m getting some serious Coheed and Cambria Afterman vibes from this album because of the title, [M]other, which is similar to the name of Sirius’ AI, Allmother, that helps him guide his ship through space in the story of Afterman Ascension/Descension. Plus there were some cool female-computer-esque voice lines in ‘Mother pt. 4.’
My conclusion to this madness I’ve written here is that I’m probably wrong about the space part, and this upcoming concept album is likely to be more about greed, political corruption, etc. However, I want very desperately to believe that Veil of Maya is about to release a banger sci-fi concept album and blow me away. Whatever the outcome, I’m sure it’s going to be gnarly and I can’t wait for this to release. Please check these singles out, listen to the album when it drops, and support the band if you can afford to. Also check out the ‘Mother pt. 4’ music video below:
If you liked this article, check out my other recent one here. As always, the images in this article are not mine, and all rights belong to Veil of Maya and Sumerian Records.
