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Aug 06, 2024 By Caleb Campbell Photography by Clare O'Mahony

Chicago indie rock outfit Modern Nun debuted with their 2022 EP, Name evoking a warm sun-dappled style of indie rock in the same vein as bands like Wilco or Ratboys. The band has been quiet in the years since, but this year front-person and singer/songwriter Edie McKenna emerged with her new solo single, “Kick in the Shin.” The track is the first taste of McKenna’s forthcoming debut EP, For Edie, out on August 23rd via Devil Town Tapes.

Although the songs on For Edie are seeing the light of day for the first time, they were written years ago while McKenna was between the ages of 17 and 22. McKenna assumed she would never release these songs, but she later revisited them with the help of engineer Seth Beck, working from his Chicago studio, Future Rat Recordings. She called the EP For Edie as a tribute to her younger self, with many of the tracks on the record dealing with her experience growing up as a queer person in a heavily Christian setting.

Today, McKenna is back with the EP’s second single, “Hail Mary,” premiering with Under the Radar.

“Hail Mary” blooms from an intimate acoustic cut into a cascading swirl of indie rock guitars, guided by a plaintive vocal performance from McKenna. It is easy to envision the track as a folk confessional, but the churning guitars bring out new dynamic layers, crashing in on the chorus and lending it a cathartic weight. McKenna ebbs and flows with the instrumentation, letting her voice lilt and simmer before ascending to impassioned heights. Meanwhile, her lyrics reflect on the uncertainty and confusion of navigating her adolescent queerness: “You’ve been looking at me through the peephole / Could only see my knees / And underneath those stained-glass windows I prayed / You’d take it away from me / So I said Hail Mary, Hail Mary, Hail Mary for me.”

McKenna explains, “‘Hail Mary’ was written as a prayer to my younger self. I wrote these songs many years ago and while I cannot recall the writing process itself I know that it still feels, to this day, very cathartic to sing this song. When I was growing up, I could not comprehend my queerness as an actuality, more as the sin that it would eventually be to live out. So, I only acknowledged it by pleading with God to take it away before it became a more serious problem. The ‘Hail Mary’ prayer itself was always my go-to, so I thought I’d rewrite it to aid in my own healing and acceptance.”

Check out the song and video below. The For Edie EP is out on August 23rd via Devil Town Tapes.