Albuquerque stoner metal outfit, Blue Heron, have just shared their tribute to industrial legends, Nine Inch Nails; a cover of “Head Like a Hole.” Accompanied by a video, it is the first single from the companion album Best of Nine Inch Nails Redux. The full-length is to be released parallel to the forthcoming The Downward Spiral Redux, part of the Magnetic Eye Records Redux Series. Both tribute albums are due out November 28, 2025. Find out more below.
Pre-order the albums here:
https://spkr.store/collections/redux-classic-album-re-imagined
“It’s always been a dream to cover a Nine Inch Nails song, but the opportunity never presented itself being that I’ve never played in an Industrial band,” bass player “Big” Steve Schmidlapp writes. “I was beyond excited when we were asked to do a track for the Nine Inch Nails Redux and was shocked that “Head Like a Hole” hadn’t already been taken. “Head Like a Hole” was the gateway song for me and many others to find Nine Inch Nails and industrial music in the early 90s. I always felt like the synthesized bass line would be a badass heavy groovy guitar riff, which was the foundation of how we approached creating our rendition. We definitely put our own stamp on the song, I’m excited to hear what people think of it.”
The Downward Spiral Redux contains 14 cover renditions of the original album tracks in sequence, recorded by some of the most compelling artists in hard and heavy music today.
Best of Nine Inch Nails Redux tracklisting:
01 Snakemother – The Day the World Went Away / Sin
02 Blue Heron – Head Like a Hole
03 Graycon – Right Where It Belongs
04 The Ocean – Even Deeper
05 Evi Vine – This Isn’t the Place
06 Nonexistent Night – The Perfect Drug
07 The Moth Gatherer – The Hand That Feeds
08 Chrome Ghost – Every Day Is Exactly the Same
09 Marissa Nadler – The Great Below
10 Bees Made Honey In The Vein Tree – Over & Out
11 Thou – Suck
12 Orbiter – Terrible Lie
13 Bleakheart – Something I Could Never Have
Blue Heron have added “Head Like a Hole” to the setlist for their upcoming European tour. Please find all confirmed shows listed below.
Blue Heron Live
10 Oct 2025 Karlsruhe (DE) Alte Hackerei +High Desert Queen
11 Oct 2025 München (DE) Keep It Low Festival
12 Oct 2025 Arnstadt (DE) Rockjungfer
13 Oct 2025 Bamberg (DE) Live Club +Submarine on Mars
14 Oct 2025 Hagen (DE) Werkhof Hohenlimburg +Stargo
15 Oct 2025 Rotterdam (NL) Roodkapje +Mephistofeles +High Desert Queen
16 Oct 2025 Tilburg (NL) Little Devil +Gnome +Tankzilla
17 Oct 2025 Trier (DE) Rothaus +Organic Destruction
19 Oct 2025 Antwerp (BE) Desertfest Belgium
Blue Heron coalesced in 2018 around a compulsion to fill the wide New Mexico skies with massive volume, and to saturate their piece of desert with thunderous riffs and gritty vocals that rip and roar. They emerged from Albuquerque with the 2021 EP Black Blood of the Earth / A Sunken Place, followed by two full-length albums, Ephemeral (2022) and Everything Fades (2024), the latter of which garnered international praise and marked the band as a rising force in the desert rock & stoner and doom metal scene. Their firsthand relationship with the desert is inextricable from who they are and how they sound, and the band will bring their sun-scorched riff-heaviness to Europe on tour this October in support of upcoming new release Emulations and their appearance on Best of Nine Inch Nails Redux.
More from Magnetic Eye Records:
Enhance your Redux experience of Magnetic Eye Records and friends, who are respectfully paying homage to US-industrial rock legends Nine Inch Nails and their 1994 milestone album The Downward Spiral, with the additional of even more spectacular deep cuts and classics offered on the companion album Best of Nine Inch Nails Redux. At this moment, the world’s reliance on machines, algorithms, and artificial intelligence has never been greater. This makes now the perfect time to reflect on the emergence of a musical force whose blend of mechanized instrumentation and raw emotion was singular and revolutionary.
Nine Inch Nails were formed in Cleveland, Ohio in 1988. They arrived around the same time as grunge when Generation X was developing an awareness of itself, but while there was cross-appeal, the sound they created was clearly and intentionally something very different. The skepticism of that era came through in the music, with artists from Rage Against The Machine to Nirvana pushing back against what were acceptable words and actions in our society, and everything from the ideals of what major musicians should do with their fame to what people and corporations stood for were fair targets.
Nine Inch Nails were at least twice as cynical as everyone else and reflected the singular, driven musical expression of mastermind Trent Reznor. The music he made as NIN has always ranged from infectious, furious, delicate, and sexual to transgressive, uplifting, cautionary, and hopeless. While Reznor did not always make broad, blunt statements about politics, materialism or repression (though he definitely did at times), there was a consistently restless quality to his music. His frustration at the veneer of normalcy and acceptability that characterized modern popular music was palpable, and he seemed to search endlessly for seams to peel back and rip loose to expose what was underneath.
Join us in paying homage to one of rock’s most ambitious innovators and angriest Gen X voices railing against the status quo, as we present our latest Redux Series installment The Downward Spiral Redux, along with the traditional companion album Best of Nine Inch Nails Redux. The two double album collections together comprise 27 re-imagined renditions by some of today’s coolest and heaviest artists taking on Nine Inch Nails classics and deep cuts.
The Magnetic Eye Redux Series features hand-picked classic albums from across the history of rock and metal re-imagined in their entirety from start to finish. Artists we love from within and outside the heavy rock landscape choose tracks to make their own, bringing these milestone records into the new millennium with crushing heaviness and searing energy. To date, we’ve produced Redux editions of Pink Floyd‘s The Wall, Helmet’s Meantime, Black Sabbath‘s Vol. 4, Jimi Hendrix‘s Electric Ladyland, Alice In Chains‘ Dirt, AC/DC‘s Back in Black, Soundgarden‘s Superunknown, Jethro Tull‘s Aqualung, and Ramones‘ self-titled debut, which have included artists like Red Fang, The Sword, Matt Pike, Pallbearer, The Melvins, All Them Witches, Khemmis, ASG, Supersuckers, Zakk Wylde, Mark Lanegan, Voivod, and many more amazing artists. Join us for our tenth foray into Redux territory as we pay proper respect to the US industrial rock legends Nine Inch Nails!