New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Heavenly Blue are unwavering in their deep punk roots. The artists responsible for crafting a sound now over 25 years old are not only reemerging, but sharing the stage with influenced younger musicians who thought they would never get the opportunity.
Heavenly Blue's maximalist approach shows through their seven member ensemble's composition, their emotional sound and communal style of songwriting across miles and various locations captures the spirit that bands from their era and those past are championed on a philosophical level.
In other words, Heavenly Blue are a modern update to an overlooked form, and the title of their debut LP, We Have The Answer— out April 12 on Secret Voice— is an apt and promising description of the period in which the sound now finds itself.
The Detroit-based septet consists of vocalists Juno Parsons and Mel Caren, guitarists Kris Lane, Maya Chun, and Mac Porter, and a rhythm section consisting of bassist Jon Riley and drummer Andrew Coughlin. From the end of Chun's and Riley's previous band Youth Novel, the pair enlisted a number of Michigan musicians of varying levels of experience, exchanging demos with each other over the course of a year.
From there, Heavenly Blue toured with bands like Frail Body, Venus Twins, Blind Girls, and Touché Amoré. Through their connection to Touché Amoré's vocalist Jeremy Bolm, the band produced their first track, "Certain Distance," for a compilation on Bolm's imprint Secret Voice Records.
On Heavenly Blue's collaborative spirit and how it has led them to this point, Riley asserts, "The title invokes an unquestionable certainty, yet without thinking about exactly who or what 'we' is, you may miss the point. The process of making this record involved a deeply collaborative process where every single member of the group put their whole selves into the music. The result is a statement I feel is deeply personal of what I want out of a record. Something loud and blistering, but hopefully still visceral."
Heavenly Blue's style is earmarked by screamo's familiar dynamics of harmony and dissonance played both to complement and work against each other. For them, it's about bringing screamo sensibilities to noise rock and post-hardcore. On We Have The Answer, they explore the traditional pairing of heavy/ugly and soft/pretty, but additionally approaches the concept's inverse, playing melodies violently and fast complex passages softly. Heavenly Blue also mixes in hardcore influence with mid-song breakdowns as verses.
We Have The Answer continually begs the same emotional analysis that aggressive music has demanded and rarely received for decades. These new songs carry the spirit of the band's past while others sit in the realm of Heavenly Blue's noise rock contemporaries. Heavenly Blue demonstrates a more traditional structure on the album single "Static Voice Speaks To Static Me," which premieres today.
"Static Voice was the first track I wrote on for Heavenly Blue. The band had sent me some Soundcloud playlists of demos and this one stood out to me right away. I used this song to discover my voice, as I had no idea before this project I was capable of anything but clean singing. I recorded myself with an iPhone and sent it over, feeling like I'd submitted an audition for the group, though it was never that formal. We call it the "pop banger" of the record, it has a more straightforward structure than a lot of our other stuff. We actually didn't finish a proper demo with both vocalists and a revised bridge until more than halfway through the process of recording WHTA, but to me, this song set the tone lyrically for the rest of the album" Mel comments.
Jon continues, "The origins for this song are when Mac had just moved in with me after working overseas for a few years. This was one of a few writing sessions we had during the height of the pandemic. We came to the decision to write something that sounded undeniably 90s screamo, was catchy like Knapsack or Jawbreaker, and had a more conventional song structure than some of our other songs. The result is maybe one of our favorite songs to play live." -Jon, Bass
We Have The Answer's release through Secret Voice Records also highlights the intergenerational cooperation that has come to be one of the most exciting aspects of punk in the 2020's. In its own way, it highlights the statement that Heavenly Blue are making with the title of their work. The sense of community within the artists involved suggests a shared idea of purpose that is not common enough in music. If you have to ask what "the answer" is, Heavenly Blue insists upon listening and attending a show near you. Look for the answer within. Hopefully the seed is sown and you'll understand.
Pre-order / pre-save We Have The Answer ahead of its April 12th release date here.
