Blue Heron are a heavy rock band from the US and this is their second album.
Ever since first encountering Blue Heron in 2021 on their debut release Black Blood of the Earth/A Sunken Place I’ve been partial to the band’s earthy brand of stoner rock. They capitalised on this early success in 2022 with their first album Ephemeral, and then the following year released a split with High Desert Queen which I particularly liked. All of which brings us to Everything Fades, and its 39 minutes of new material.
Everything Fades finds Blue Heron on fine form. Compared to Ephemeral, it’s refined, more concise in its delivery, yet with an expanded focus. It’s a heavier and doomier collection of songs, with beefy distortion and a rawer vocal delivery. Of the latter, we still get a mix of rough and clean singing, but the vocals sound grittier overall, and match the increased density of presence that the album benefits from.
The songwriting draws on the classic stoner rock template, yet Blue Heron have a special, hard-to-quantify quality that makes them stand out from the crowd. It’s partially down to an innate talent for the desert rock style, and partially down to other influences that are felt in key places; you can hear grunge and post-rock influences in places, which only enrich matters further, and there’s definitely more of a doom flavour this time around.
Blue Heron are skilled at peeling off meaty riffs that hit the spot. The songs groove out of the speakers with charisma and confidence, and Everything Fades has a down-to-earth character that’s endearing. Ranging from mood-rich soundscapes that bleed emotive atmosphere, to hard rocking riff factories that bring the heaviness, Blue Heron know what they’re doing with the style.
Everything Fades is the synthesis of everything that made Blue Heron’s past work more notable than the norm. Blue Heron remind me that despite the million faceless stoner rock bands out there, I do still enjoy this style when it’s done well, and there are gems to be found in the underground where they roam.
Very highly recommended.
Wonderbox Metal 