The Blue Herons have a new single coming out on 16 October called Sleepy Town. I played their debut album Demon Slayer a lot when it came out in April, so I'm very happy to be writing about this one.
If you haven't come across them, The Blue Herons are a duo – Andy Jossi and Gretchen DeVault – and they're great purveyors of jangle pop. The unusual bit is that they live on different continents. Andy is in Switzerland and Gretchen is in Grand Rapids, Michigan (she moved there from Los Angeles a couple of years ago), and they've been making records together since 2020 without ever being in the same studio.
So how does that work? As Andy told The Big Takeover: "Essentially, we exchange sound files, and I then assemble the final pieces." Gretchen sends over vocal ideas, sometimes just a voice memo, and Andy builds them up into Blue Herons songs. Don't hold your breath for a tour though – Andy says "No one will ever get me on a stage. I freeze up completely in front of an audience."
They found each other through the radio, more or less. Andy heard Gretchen's voice on a radio show or playlist and got in touch with some song ideas, and it turned out Gretchen had already heard his previous band The Churchill Garden on the radio in her back garden during lockdown. Radio doing its job in both directions! Both have plenty of form – Andy was also in Dawn, and Gretchen has sung with The Icicles, Voluptuous Panic and Hero No Hero.
Sleepy Town lands almost exactly six months after Demon Slayer, and the band say it's been waiting in the wings all that time. It's built on layers of 6-string and 12-string guitars, which they describe as going for a late-80s to early-90s college-rock feel, with Gretchen's vocals heading for a big singalong chorus. Lyrically it's about what gets tucked away and left behind, and the hope of finding a connection somewhere else.
If you like The Sundays, Alvvays or Hatchie, the band reckon this is for you, and I wouldn't argue with that.
Sleepy Town is out on 16 October on Shelflife Records, on Bandcamp and all the usual streaming services. Demon Slayer came out on Shelflife in North America, Too Good To Be True in France and Fastcut Records in Japan, on vinyl, CD and digital, and it's well worth catching up with before then.
Bandcamp: https://theblueherons1.bandcamp.com/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2ECvH4RKMkR2Ut0EK5l2Ad
Website: https://theblueherons.com/