There is a stretch of the year in New England when the colour has gone and the woods stop pretending. No leaves left to soften the shape of anything. Just the structure of the trees, all of them built the same way and none of them the same. Mary White-Valliere goes looking for that on purpose. “Come winter, I love seeing what lies beneath all of those brightly colored leaves after they fall, the skeletons of the trees all similar in structure yet so different at the same time,” she said. “It’s hard not to compare our life cycle when in both landscapes.”
“Nothing’s Sacred Anymore” sounds like that stretch of the year. Five songs, just under seven minutes total, every one of them moving like something coming down a hallway toward you.
The guitars sit in one dense mass with almost no daylight between them. Mary holds a single pitch and drives it flat into the mix, no swooping, no melodic hedging, the same note repeated until the syllables start to come apart. The drums peak and saturate rather than sitting politely under everything, and the whole thing has the compression of a room too small for what’s happening inside it. Then, for a few seconds at a time, the band drop into something almost tender, a clean melodic figure with air around it, and you get long enough to understand that it was only ever there to make the next collapse land harder.
The whole thing is overwhelming, eerie, terrifying, and strangely beautiful.
“Honestly, this question is kind of funny to us, because it feels like the opposite of a constraint,” Justin Valliere said when asked how you build weight without hooks and returns.
“Repeating something over and over, and playing it like it’s earned that repetition, actually feels harder to us than just moving on to the next part. We know plenty of bands do the repetition thing really well, but for New Forms, we just get more out of chasing the next idea instead of sitting with one. We’ve always joked that this band is like setting off a flashbang: get in, get out, before anyone really clocks what happened. We’d rather someone walk away thinking ‘I wish they’d played that riff one more time’ than ‘that was cool, but it dragged.'”
He doesn’t oversell it either. “That said, we’re not perfect about it, even in our small catalogue there are parts that repeat a bit. The songs are just short enough that it doesn’t wear out its welcome.”
The melodic breaks are the part people tend to miss, and Chris Musser traces the thinking back to something Pierce Jordan said. “I think what Pierce Jordan meant by that is you can be rhythmically pulverizing but still weave melody in there. Think Beau Navire, Age Sixteen, La Quiete; they write these beautiful melodies while still going ballistic. We didn’t want to strictly be a grindy band, emo is in our DNA.”
The lyrics are lamentations. Memory, trauma, loss, all of it routed through forests and water. “As far as imagery goes I tend to see all that New England offers,” Mary said. “Forests that change with each season and the ever expansive ocean. Both offering beauty in every season.” She took the photography for the release. Justin handled the design, layout and screen print, which he does for most of what the band puts out, under the name Black Coffiend.
What she does with the mic has a longer story behind it. “Being quiet and submissive never sat comfortably with me and unfortunately it’s something I became very good at doing growing up in order to keep those around me comfortable,” Mary said.
“As I’ve grown older and I’ve dedicated a lot of time and still do in putting in the work of finding myself and the parts of me I never really knew existed, one of was my voice. Something that may seem so simple to some can actually be very difficult to get accustomed to when you’ve been conditioned to suppress it. As I continued to learn and grow I started to see there was an inevitable chain reaction that followed using my voice, whether i was advocating for myself, sharing life experiences with others that used to hold shame, speaking up about injustices impacting those around me etc the more I used my voice the more connection and change happened.”
The screaming is the point. “Being apart of New Forms is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced, it’s raw and real and emotional. Whether we’re playing on top of each other in a tiny basement or up on a stage at a festival, I sincerely consider myself lucky to be able to have the outlet I do with them. I will never ever get tired of screaming along with others while we ride out our emotions during our set. If it weren’t for finding my voice I never would have made the connections I have with so many wonderful humans from all over. It continues to remind not only myself but others that we’re not alone and we’re all trying our best given the circumstances that surround us. Being able to sit in those moments of big emotions together is what brings people together in a world that’s continuing to divide and disconnect us and that’s why music and community is so goddamn important.”
“I have found my voice in this band and it’s allowed me to offer up words to others that I wish someone had spoken to me earlier in life. I never want to stop connecting with others and pouring love into the type of community that builds us all up.”
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The EP was tracked mostly live to tape at Godcity Studios in Salem, Massachusetts, with Zach Weeks engineering and mixing, on a machine that used to belong to Tony Bennett. Nick Townsend mastered it. Both Godcity sessions have gone the same way.
“Both times that we’ve recorded at Godcity have been a whirlwind, usually constrained to a weekend with many a few nights after work to finish vocals,” Chris said. “Recording to tape affected me the most because you can’t plug in and record parts, it just has to be a perfect take. It was also interesting listening to Zach describe the unique intricacies of tape, like how saturating and peaking some of the drums actually made it sound better vs not wanting to do that through other methods.”
New Forms began in 2018 as a trio: Justin on guitar, Chris on drums, Travis Fitzgerald on bass. Their first EP, “I Don’t Want to Live My Life Again”, arrived in 2019. Jake Letizia joined on second guitar and Mary on vocals, and the quintet released their debut album “As Dust Collects” in October 2023 through Zegema Beach Records.
Justin is precise about what the two of them opened up. “Jake has been an incredible addition to New Forms. He’s an excellent musician and writer, and he’s given us so much more texture and melody in our songs, which matters enormously live. We’ve always wanted our recorded sound to translate as closely as possible to the stage, so we never wanted to layer on extra guitar work in the studio that we couldn’t pull off at a show. It doesn’t hurt that he’s an absolute sweetheart, the type of guy who’ll rip a gig with us in Boston and then immediately drive to Providence to rip another one with his other band the same night.”
On Mary: “Her voice and perspective bring an angle we needed, within the music landscape and in the world at large. Her writing is excellent because it’s deeply personal, yet it comes out in a way so many people can relate to. She’s a fantastic storyteller with a strong visual sensibility that’s helped define what we’re all about. She gives every performance 110%, and she’s one of the kindest people we know. We’ve watched her connect with people at shows in a way that’s genuinely endearing.”
There’s a nice piece of symmetry buried in the lineup: Jake played the very first New Forms show, with another band, and it was also his first show ever.
Everyone came in from a different corner of the same map. Mary grew up just outside Boston going to punk and hardcore shows and making art, and points to Ampere, Amenra, Oathbreaker and Have Heart.
Justin came up in southern New Hampshire DIY, played guitar in She Died Real Pretty and Alessa, and lists Ampere, Botch, Discharge, film scores, Daniel Striped Tiger and a general fear of complacency.
Travis has been in several bands including Youth Funeral. Chris played in casper elgin and light caverns, and names nuvolascura, toe and Youth Funeral.
Jake came out of the Lowell DIY scene through Lessener, reveries, Districts and Twin Cyclist, with La Quiete, Pg. 99, Age Sixteen, Kidcrash, Capsule, tinyhawks, Mihai Edrisch and Kaospilot behind him.
The band split their base between southern New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
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“Nothing’s Sacred Anymore” is their first release with Iodine Recordings, out 24 July, with a 12″ pressed on burning leaves yellow. Leaving Zegema Beach wasn’t a falling out.
“Zegema Beach was instrumental in helping us land on our feet with that first record,” Chris said. “They let us on ZBR fest where we played the whole thing months before it was released. They’ve been so supportive since day one and we’ll always be so thankful for what they did for us and what they do for screamo as a whole. Iodine actually reached out to us, after they had seen us at some shows (Jeromes Dream) and it seemed like a great opportunity to have a more locally based label helping us out. They’ve been a huge help with helping us navigate the booking side of things this year.”
They’ve toured with Jerome’s Dream, Beau Navire and Crowning, spent April on an east coast run with Votive, and played ZBR Fest, New Friends Fest, California Kicks and Dilly Dally Fest. Chris describes the festival circuit as one long family gathering with the volume up. “To be honest they’re always a whirlwind, you’re driving (sometimes flying) for hours/days and then are immediately bombarded with every person you’ve ever seen online talking about screamo. It’s great don’t get me wrong, you leave with your heart so full with a sense of true community. We actually see a lot of the same people at all of them, whether they’re in bands or just dedicated screamo soldiers, so it’s always a big reunion soundtracked by blistering noise.”
That community work carries on when the vans stop. Jake runs and books ALS Fest and Wilder Zangcraft and releases records through Ancient Injury Records. Justin sums up his own reasons as community, DIY, art and fighting back. Jake’s are fostering community, supporting safe spaces and growing DIY in Boston. Chris’s are “do cool shit”. Mary owns MAUVE, her own salon studio, and cuts hair when she isn’t tearing her throat apart in a basement.
“New Forms is us finding and trying to nourish a community we sincerely want to thrive,” she said. “It’s about putting out into the world the things we wish someone shared with us at times in our lives when things felt overwhelmingly lonely. We pour our energy, emotions and ourselves into making New Forms something sincere to us.”
Catch New Forms live at the new Dreamwell record release show on August 28th. Go here to see out new feature and get more details there.
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