Mary Eliza’s ‘Spider’ isn’t just a collection of songs – it’s a raw, unfiltered dive into emotion, illness, and self-discovery, woven together with the same quiet resilience and misunderstood beauty as the creature it’s named after. Here, the Portland-based singer/songwriter offers intimate insights into her debut album – a deeply personal record of pain and healing, crafted to evoke a visceral response from its listeners.
Stream: “Dogs” – Mary Eliza
Creepy, crawly, and… cathartic? Mary Eliza’s debut album Spider isn’t just a collection of songs – it’s a raw, unfiltered dive into emotion, illness, and self-discovery, woven together with the same quiet resilience and misunderstood beauty as the creature it’s named after. Marrying indie rock fervor with alt-folk warmth, the singer/songwriter channels the innermost bits of her humanity into a stirring record that aches, roars, and refuses to be ignored.
Every time I look at you
it’s like we’ve just begun
You’re grinning and you’re whispering
“it’s like we’ve just begun”
Even though the dogs
are ripping trash up in the street
It doesn’t have to feel like that
when you’re with me
It doesn’t have to feel like that
when you’re with me
– “Dogs,” Mary Eliza
Independently released January 17th, Spider introduces Mary Eliza as a breathtakingly bold and unflinchingly honest singer/songwriter with a penchant for lyrical vulnerability and sonic fervor. The new LP follows 2023’s nine-track Moments Not Days EP, and sees the Portland, Oregon-based artist writing and recording in collaboration with Preston Cochran (Lucy Dacus, Illuminati Hotties) and Jake Finch (boygenius, Ashe, Suki Waterhouse) at Trace Horse Studios in Nashville.
While Eliza’s entire oeuvre can be characterized as the intimate reflections of a heavy soul, Spider is her most confessional, confrontational, and revealing effort to date. With Mali Velasquez’s I’m Green, Big Thief’s Masterpiece, Mitski’s The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We, and Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot as her primary inspirations, Eliza turned her own personal, lived experiences into an emotionally charged soundtrack to grief and growth, pain and healing.
“For me, each song on this record encompasses a feeling,” Eliza tells Atwood Magazine. “My aim with this record was to sit with these strong emotions and allow them to speak freely through song. It’s a theme that I would say is more ‘felt,’ as opposed to explicitly stated, and is a process of creation that felt like conversing with my core being. Creating this record was akin to scratching an itch. It felt like healing, and arriving at ‘full circle’ moments all along the way.”
Eliza has dealt with chronic illness since she was four years old; her struggles, and the uncertainties of life and health, served as both direct and indirect source material for many of her songs. After years of mystery and confusion, she finally received a full diagnosis in 2024: A heart disorder called POTS, a connective tissue disorder called hEDS, four tick-borne illnesses, Lyme Disease, and a rare blood disorder.
“I would say that my vision for this record was relatively stable throughout the process of writing and recording,” she says. “However, halfway through the writing process, I began treatment for a chronic illness, and was hit with extreme exhaustion. At this point, I entertained the idea of going for a more stripped-down, living-room feel (as that’s physically how I was feeling), but the pain, grief, and anger that I was experiencing pulled me back into aching for the loudness, vulnerability, and rawness that ultimately became the final record.”
I loved you like the moon
Loved you like a bookstore
Loved you like a problem
I can’t see anymore
Loved you like I’m empty
Loved you like a spider
Like a home invasion
I’m down to the wire
Can you breathe my air
Can you clean my lungs?
I can’t go much further
After all I’ve done
After all I’ve done
After all I’ve done
– “Spider,” Mary Eliza
The pain, grief, and anger that I was experiencing pulled me back into aching for the loudness, vulnerability, and rawness that ultimately became the final record.
Eliza affectionately describes Spider as vulnerable, nostalgic, and full.
The album’s title, she explains, relates to her own perspective as someone who has often felt like an outsider.
“Since I was a little girl, I’ve always loved spiders. I find them to be fascinating, deeply beautiful, and I adore the softness with which they move. At an early age, I felt that spiders were widely misunderstood creatures. This has been something that has made me feel kindred to spiders throughout my life, as the feeling of being ‘misunderstood’ is something that is deeply woven into the experience of folks with invisible illness and disabilities. At the end of the day, do I crave understanding? Or am I comfortable with expressing myself freely and allowing misunderstandings to exist around me? I think that both are true.”
Whereas her last records had a lighter touch and more acoustic approach, Spider is as fragile as it is ferocious: Loud, heated songs like album opener “Dogs,” lead single “Porcelain,” and “Fire” share space with softer songs like “Circles,” “The Fall,” and “Slow Mover,” making for a listening experience full of dynamic contrast and movement.
But don’t mistake Eliza’s occasional softness for any lack of intensity.
“The approach that I took to Spider differs greatly from every other project that I have released,” she says, comparing the new album to her past releases. “Moments Not Days, Forest Tracks, and Weeds, Trees, & Lullabees were all recorded in the moment. There was very little rumination on arrangement, or even sound quality. They were written and recorded with imperfection as a final stage, as if we were sitting in the same tree and that is how you hear the music. Quite literally, many of the songs from those projects were recorded with a handheld recorder from a barefoot perch in a bush out in the forest.”
“Spider, however, was always something that I wanted to be experienced in a different way, on both my end, and the listeners.’ I feel that Spider captures a different part of my being, one that is more rooted in unabashed loudness and intimacy with the listener. The time that I took to sit with the emotions that make up the record created a greater sense of artistic vulnerability for me. I am honored to share it with other humans.”
Highlights abound on the journey from “Dogs” to “Slow Mover” as Mary Eliza bares her soul in song, ten times over.
Atwood Magazine recently named the aforementioned album’s opener one of our 2025 Editor’s Picks, praising the artist for a stunning performance full of passion and aching emotion: “An intense, unrelenting heat ripples throughout ‘Dogs.’ It’s the intimate, visceral fervor of inner turmoil, unrelenting angst, and raw heartache; the breathtaking churn of romantic uncertainty and instability, of a cherished love’s fragility and fracture – and it all comes to the surface through a warm wash of heavy, effect-laden guitars and stirring, unfiltered vocals.”
Further memorable moments include the smoldering, breathtakingly expressive title track “Spider,” the red-hot slow-burn “Fire,” the perky and punchy “Cerina,” and “Porcelain” – a gritty and graceful, sonically charged and charmingly messy track that is far less white, shiny, or clean than one might expect.
“My favorites change every couple weeks, depending on what expression of myself I am really leaning into and relating with,” Eliza smiles. “Right now, my favorites are ‘Slow Mover’ and ‘Dogs.’ They feel supportive and true to my existence this week.”
“Each verse from the track ‘Slow Mover’ really hits home for me,” she continues. “This song was so helpful and healing for me to write, and I could choose any verse that is my favorite. Here is one of them, that expresses the feeling of someone rushing into the future and fixating on a specific vision, whereas for me, I have learned that the best things are experienced when we simply witness, and allow.”
“You claw at the future like it’s fabric to rip
As if time were a body and you can analyze it
But the anatomy of time is nothing more than a drip
Of water down the nape of your neck”
“Another verse that I really like is the first collection of words in the track ‘Dissipate.’ It means so many different things to me, but one of the meanings is that it is an expression of feeling as if this person is only seeing a silhouette of who I am, but I want to show them more.”
“Do you think that you could know me,
like I think you could?
A custom silhouette of all the shit
I’ve been through
Like a cardboard cutout
in the corner of your room”
Mary Eliza recently sat down with Atwood Magazine to take us track-by-track through the making of Spider.
Experience the full record via our below stream, and dive into the musical and emotional webs that make up this very special debut album, courtesy of the artist herself.
“I hope that listeners feel something when they listen to Spider,” Eliza shares. “That, for me, is the highest honor as an artist: Emoting something in someone else. We live in a society that seems to strive to detach us from our core beings and looks down on pure expression. I want this record to reconnect listeners to their bodies, feelings, and parts of themselves that they might have otherwise forgotten about, or by default, detached from.”
“This is truly what this record has given me, too; an added connection and cathartic dance with who I am. It has broadened the way that I view myself as an artist, and as a person.”
Spiders may be among nature’s most misunderstood creatures, but through her captivating voice and powerful songwriting, Mary Eliza reminds us that those who go unseen often have the deepest stories to tell.
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:: stream/purchase Spider here ::
:: connect with Mary Eliza here ::
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Stream: ‘Spider’ – Mary Eliza
:: Inside Spider ::
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Dogs
Dogs started out as an unfinished voice memo in my phone, written mainly about a fear that I was experiencing surrounding the longevity of love. I wanted it to last, the love that I had created with someone at the time, and felt that if I could just piece them back together, and be strong for them, then I could build the lasting love that I wanted for myself. But you can’t carry a relationship on your own, and in the end it didn’t work out. As I sat with the song in the following months, and brought it into the studio, it turned into something that is really close to my heart. When I wrote it, it felt that the focus in the song was scratching at an end goal, a lasting love, but I now feel that it holds a light to the existence of love that I was experiencing at the time, and the beauty of caring so deeply for someone, regardless of the outcome. It’s incredible to me that a song can greet you just as kindly in such different phases of life.
Fire
I spent the cold months of 2023 and early 2024 in a tiny house in central Oregon, where the snow piled up to the windows and all roads closed down. I had just gone through a break-up, and had just been diagnosed with a chronic illness that had been a mystery for 20 years. I was experiencing a deep loneliness and sadness that I embraced fully, unafraid to experience that darkness again. The first verses of Fire were written as I sat in front of the fireplace in the tiny home, trying my best to create something out of the itchiness I felt inside. I sat with those first verses for several months, until I felt ready to complete it. It felt like scratching that itch, as writing songs often does, expressing my anger and longing to share feelings that I felt were bigger than me.
Circles
I wrote the first couple lines to Circles when I was thru hiking the Pacific Crest Trail last summer.
“Have I ever been alone before, or is this silence loud for you?
It keeps roaring through my telephone, it wears a bitter shade of blue”
Those two lines just kept running through my head during those months of walking, and it became a fun game for me to try to write new lines along the way. Ultimately, off the trail, when I finally had a guitar that wasn’t (more or less) broken, the song just seemed to happen all at once.
My hiking partner had told me about a cognitive scientist who came up with the strange loop theory, essentially saying that after you die, you continue to live on in other people’s minds in a series of ‘loops’, or ‘afterburns’. I really liked this idea, as I often ruminate on death and it was something that I felt that I had experienced, (and still do), after my grandma died, a person who holds much influence on my life.
“Even though I will disappear, part of me will always be here I live in circles in your mind.” I love how different people draw different meanings from these lyrics, (as the magic of music goes), and I hope to continue to foster that listening experience in the future.
The Fall
I wrote The Fall in October, as I ruminated on how much I love the seasons shifting into winter. It’s my favorite time of year, getting the first cool breeze after the last heat-wave, seeing the tops of the trees tinged with oranges, pinks, yellows and reds, making a cup of tea at any hour of the day. The song is loosely about seasonal depression, something that I seem to experience in a potent way because of an illness that I have, which I mention in the song. It’s about feeling misunderstood, by others, by the weather, and is a sentiment towards wanting to be a better person, regardless of season.
Porcelain
Porcelain starts out with a bang, meant to surprise. Porcelain has surprised me from start to finish. I initially wrote it in the snowy, dark days when a relationship of mine was seeming to crumble right in front of me. It started out slow, and timid, as I hadn’t said any of it out loud yet. As the tenderness of the initial seed of song wore off and grew into strength, resilience, and frustration, it began to take new shape. This was a song that I felt really exploded in the studio. Preston really saw my vision and was able to help me execute it. This song encompasses a lot of growth for me, and I hold it close to my heart.
Cerina
Cerina is about my best friend, Cerina. We grew up about a block from each other, and our friendship has shaped me more than any other in my life. She is calm in conflict, understanding, and so, so patient. When you live in such closeness with someone for so long, you are bound to see every side of them. We know each other so deeply, I call her my sister. It has seemed to me that in every earth-shattering pain and circumstance that we endure, she knows that it will work out, and that we will be ok. Her wisdom has guided me through many-a-journey, and will continue to guide me through many more. “Terrible Cerina, where’d ya get the feeling that everything’s alright?”
Happiness
Happiness is probably the most direct, and honest song on the record. I wrote it a couple years ago, when I was seeing my life intertwine with another person. Being in love at that time felt like holding a mirror to a lack of love that I felt for myself. I craved happiness, peacefulness, and a broader view of my own heart, and I saw the journey for what it was. Writing Happiness was sitting with these emotions and being grateful for the journey. Being grateful for another human and beginning the journey of being grateful for myself.
Dissipate
Writing Dissipate was a flood. The first half of the song happened within minutes, and the rest followed a couple days later. The entire song, for me, encompasses the feeling of disappearing into another person. Of wanting them to know me, to see me completely, but then being absorbed into their life and plans without even a shred of emotion from them.
“I dissipate every time I love you right” is about that experience, of loving someone in the way that they desire to be loved and losing yourself in the process. There’s a duality to the song, of being lost in this love yet knowing deep down that regardless, I want them to have my heart. The song ends with a longing to just have peace of mind, assurance that if I stick with them, that I won’t disappear.
Spider
Spider has become the most special song to me on the record. This song has always felt so raw to me, which is heightened by the scratch vocal take that we used in the studio, and the open, vulnerable start and end to the song.
“Can you breathe my air, can you clean my lungs?
I can’t go much further after all I’ve done”
These lyrics have a few different meanings for me, and each one hits home. This song feels deeply personal to me and I wanted to express that in the record. Vulnerability is one of my favorite ways to experience music, and this song has always felt like it does that for me.
Slow Mover
To me, Slow Mover is an entire little world. Welcome to my heart! This song follows the story of meeting someone and some conversations that we had, as I told them about my life, and my long-term wish to “be happy”. I tell them that I do not exist for their enjoyment, and that it feels like they are trying to rush me, and for many reasons, I choose to move slowly through this world. As the song goes on, I wonder if the slow, soft way that I approach this life is actually a divide between us. It feels like they claw at the future and want their life to just happen already, when it already is. It’s happening, all the time, and sometimes it just takes some slow breaths and closely examining the intricacies of a leaf to enjoy the present moment.
Slow Mover is a deep breath for me, and a small smile. It is a piece of my heart, and I am so happy to be able to share it with you.
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:: stream/purchase Spider here ::
:: connect with Mary Eliza here ::
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© Katie Oscar
© Katie OscarSpider
an album by Mary Eliza
