You might not live on the desert plains, but with Everything Fades (Blues Funeral Recordings), Hard Rock three-piece Blue Heron can show you the way there.
Formed in 2018, the identity and sound of Albuquerque, New Mexico’s Blue Heron is inexorably bound to the desert.
The gigantic, quivering bass of opener “Null Geodesic” (floating in on a wave of growling feedback) tells a story. It’s the same story told by the laconic, lazily stretching guitar line, growled, weather-beaten vocals and ominous, sparse drum hits, which will all soon burst into a massive desert-rock churn.
It’s a story of blazing heat and a sky that seems massive and looming.
Quite a contrast from a dull, rainy grey afternoon in Glasgow, Scotland. But even here the call of the desert winds blasts out like hot sand from the speakers as Blue Heron channel the might of their surroundings.
The guitar licks and riffs on cuts like the title track, “Trepidation” and instrumental closer “Flight of the Heron” seem to suggest that there’s one god above all in the desert, namely Josh Homme — particularly from his time in Kyuss.
But should that be a surprise? Just as Black Sabbath and Tony Iommi loom large over Doom Metal (and Metal in general), could there be Desert Rock without Kyuss?
The inspiration of Everything Fades then is clear for all to hear, but inspiration alone cannot lift Rock music towards mountain peaks. For this you need thunderous percussion, booming bass to shatter glass and guitar riffs to make you impulsively check the sky in case the sun has suddenly been swollen in black storm clouds.
Fortunately, that’s exactly what Blue Heron seem to be channelling all their energies into.
On the malevolent “Swansong”, there are hints of Alice in Chains or Stone Temple Pilots as the band blast away like they’re trying to rip a hole in the fabric of the universe, the vocal lines rising like an alarm sounding over rising flood waters.
Falling right in the centre of the album the appropriately earth-quaking “Dinosaur” may be the best realisation of the band’s sound on the album. The drums stomp hypnotically before exploding into manic bursts of clattering rolls in the chorus and if that chunky, riffing doesn’t have you pulling a stank face, do you even like Hard Rock?
In terms of hitting you with those “oh wow, this is something I’ve never heard before” moments, this isn’t necessarily some kind of sonic landscape that you’ve never experienced before (if you know your Desert Rock), but it sure sounds real.
There is only one way to listen to Everything Fades: at terrifying, window shaking volumes, a challenge to the heavens to call back with thunder from the skies.
Buy the album here:
https://blueheronabq.bandcamp.com/album/everything-fades
7 / 10
TOM OSMAN
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