High Desert Queen & Blue Heron Announce Turned to Stone Ch. 8: The Wake
If you’re unfamiliar — and if you are, that’s fine; I’m not trying to be out here keeping a gate or some bullshit — Ripple Music‘s Turned to Stone split series began after the success of the Cali label’s The Second Coming of Heavy 10-parter and has featured more than a few killers in its time, usually working on a loose theme either curated by Ripple itself or some underground denizen close to their heart. This time around, the two bands are Austin rockers High Desert Queen — about whom I’ve ended up writing pretty much daily for one reason or another the last couple weeks — and Albuquerque’s Blue Heron, who are fronted by Jadd Shickler of Magnetic Eye Records and Blues Funeral Recordings (he also co-founded MeteorCity and the All That is Heavy store before the century turned).
Both bands are awesome, so you’ll pardon if I treat this one as a total no-brainer. May 26 release. Preorders up. Fine. Blue Heron get first-single honors, and you can hear their “Able Baker” (is that you, Richard Scarry?) at the bottom of this post as a herald of more to come. I’ve done a few premieres for the last editions of Turned to Stone, and this press release just came in, so I haven’t made a request yet, but I think that might be where I head after I finish up here, which as it turns out, I just did.
From the PR wire:
US stoner rock units HIGH DESERT QUEEN and BLUE HERON to release ‘Turned To Stone Chapter 8’ split album on Ripple Music this May!
HIGH DESERT QUEEN / BLUE HERON
“Turned To Stone Chapter 8: The Wake”
Out May 26th on Ripple Music
US preorder – https://ripplemusic.bigcartel.com/products
European preorder – https://en.ripple.spkr.media/
Bandcamp – https://ripplemusic.bandcamp.com/album/turned-to-stone-chapter-8-the-wake
Ripple Music announces the release of “Turned To Stone Chapter 8: The Wake”, the new split record featuring Southwestern heavy and stoner rock merchants HIGH DESERT QUEEN and BLUE HERON, to be issued on May 26th, 2023. Listen to Blue Heron’s debut single “Able Baker” now!
About joining forces with High Desert Queen, Blue Heron frontman Jadd Shickler says: “We dig High Desert Queen as musicians and as people. We invited them to Albuquerque to play the release party for our first single, which I think was their first-ever out-of-town gig. They returned the favor by having us play with them at Ripplefest Texas last summer, and I think all of us in Blue Heron are pretty impressed by their go-getter attitude. Along with all that, several of us are actual friends outside of band stuff, so it just felt like a natural pairing that Todd at Ripple was on board with. We’re stoked that it worked out, and with luck, we’ll be playing some shows with them to promote the record later this year!”
Pairing up two highly esteemed bands of the Southwest underground scene, “Turned To Stone Chapter 8” is a gigantic masterclass of heavy rock, with six tracks that will take you on a riff-fueled journey with no further ado! Between HIGH DESERT QUEEN’s versatile and massive-sounding heavy and BLUE HERON’s raucous and desert-shaped songcraft, it is no understatement to say that we are in presence of true forces of nature, an alliance between two up-and-coming greats of the US stoner and desert rock scene.
“Turned To Stone Chapter 8” will be available on May 26th in various vinyl formats as well as digitally, with preorders available now on Ripple Music. The artwork was created by award-winning comic and poster artist Johnny Dombrowski.
TRACKLIST:
1. High Desert Queen – Black Moon
2. High Desert Queen – Drift Into The Sun
3. High Desert Queen – Roll The Dice
4. Blue Heron – Able Baker
5. Blue Heron – Day Of The Comet
6. Blue Heron – Superposition
https://www.facebook.com/highdesertqueen/
http://www.instagram.com/highdesertqueen
http://highdesertqueen.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/blueheronabq/
https://open.spotify.com/artist/5iNywSwnYX4eMwaQISEpzG
https://www.facebook.com/blueheronabq
https://www.facebook.com/theripplemusic/
https://ripplemusic.bandcamp.com/
http://www.ripple-music.com/
