Demon Slayer

 

The Blue Herons

Demon Slayer

(Shelflife)

I’ve received constructive criticism a few times over the years about my style of album write ups.  When I write them, I almost always tie them into my personal life.  I understand this critique and feel it deeply.  My efforts to change have not gone very well however, because I find it incredibly difficult to separate my love of music from my own experiences and emotions.  Nearly every memory I have is tied to what music was in my life during those times.  Besides, I find that my writing skills are not creative enough to write an interesting clinical straight forward review.  So, I simply do what I do and hope that I can convince a person to support my limited recommendations, and that I do not bore them with my asides and needless anecdotes.

Demon Slayer, the second long player by the intercontinental duo The Blue Herons is the perfect example of why I struggle to extract music from my own life, and why I become excited to share their incredible music with anyone and everyone I happen to encounter.  This album has come at a perfect time for me – like an ambulance rushing to a devastating car crash.  Over the past couple of years I have been focused intently on improving my health after the prior 25 years of very severe medical issues.  This focus has had several speed bumps along the way, as I’ve tried to take advantage of every therapy I can access, but I feel like I’m seeing the positive results from my hard work, only to feel like it’s being taken away by bureaucracy and nasty politics.  I feel like I am describing the title track from this album, “Demon Slayer” (“you gotta get up and go / you gotta slay those demons / before they deprive you of hope”). 

 For maybe the first time in my life, I’ve been trying to accept and learn how to open myself up to the world and allow others to see what’s really going on with me.  I’m done with trying to be stoic and unshakable.  I’m tired of refusing offers of help.  It’s a lonely existence and I’m feeling that.  Man, am I FEELING that, and this album helps assuage those black holes.  This amazing collection of songs are really about the ephemeral fiber that makes us all who we are as individuals and the power of honestly recognizing our own needs and wants – the very thing I’ve been neglecting for most of my life.  It’s that stuff between the purely biological physical being and the conscious mind that, for so many of us, sabotages so much of what we actually stand for.  How many times have you said something that you’ve regretted?  It’s as though there’s a layer to all of us that we all know and can recognize, but it’s an intangible.  Am I talking out my ass?  I think this is where so much of our likes and dislikes come from.  Why are some people so especially attractive to us beyond their physical attributes?  This is a realm where love and music lie.  This is where The Blue Herons thrive.

Gretchen DeVault’s words here are intensely personal.  Her vocals are wonderfully effervescent and musical and she has an incredible knack for turning a phrase into a magical earworm, but damn there’s a profoundness and intensity here that belies the breezy beauty of these addictive songs.  Andy Jossi’s musicianship is unbelievably intricate and impressive, as his knack for drama fits these songs perfectly by providing the proper depth they deserve.  

The emotional high comes early for me as the double feature of “Silent” and “Fight or Flight” appear as tracks three and four landing in the first third of the LP.  These two songs find the Blue Herons stretching out their abilities and style into a more melancholy sound.  Though it does not sound like The Sundays, “Silent” reminds me of one of their finest achievements: “Goodbye.”  It’s in the way they are both built on acoustic guitar strums, stratospheric arpeggios and a burbling bassline.  I really identify with the chorus of “Silent” as DeVault majestically pleads to “please let me off this ride / ‘cause I’ve lost myself / in these lows and highs.”  There’s a spine tingling power in her desire to stop from being overwhelmed.  I think a lot of us have been feeling those lows and highs and nothing in between for a long time now making the emotional core of “Silent” that much more effective.  Here is my one nitpick:  “Silent” should not fade out.  This is where Andy’s penchant for spectualr explosive finales is required!  I would gladly revel in an extended stretch here.  Speaking of emotion, “Fight or Flight” quietly builds from a gentle reference of blue skies to storm clouds on the horizon.  This song is about fear and dread as it swells and surges with appropriate turbulence.  Jossi has endowed the music with a cinematic drama that reminds me of the bitter apex of “Polaroids” by the all-time great Kitchens of Distinction and when the celestial peaks here DeVault emotionally begs to be able to “stay” – to keep safe from those storm clouds, whether figurative from so much divisiveness currently running through our collective veins or literally as more and more of us are being struck by “natural” disaster.  Those storm clouds could be anything that scare us, and when she sings the closing chorus refrain “is there any way to stay / to hold it all in / or to push it all away,” we can feel the fear like a rush of overwhelming emotion that suddenly bursts into our nose and eyes. 

Demon Slayer opens with the perfect pop of “Take a Break,” which is so catchy that it immediately begs to be heard over and over.  The patience preached in the song is a valuable lesson for all of us as, just as is the lesson of perseverance of “Demon Slayer.” 

“Promises” is a dreamy acoustic song that addresses our inherent individualness versus our need for companionship.  The ‘promise’ being that we hope we will find another half to our being, but realizing that we are inherently alone: “It’s a solitary sadness / a bittersweet refrain.”. “Decay” reflects back to good times and worries that those may not be felt again.  Meanwhile, the fantasy of “Willow” is a warm embrace of the power of love and how its highs can make us so desperate to make the feeling last forever, and then the defiant “My Way” finds power, freedom, and solace in ending a relationship and moving forward on one’s own.

The closing two songs “Turned to Stone” and “Empty Spaces” both rival the emotional high marks mentioned earlier.  I wrote about the Covid isolation infected “Turned to Stone” (one of 2025’s greatest songs!) last year and its well-worn deep sadness and loss still cuts deep, all while still charming with a sing along accessibility, and a hummable bass-line.  “Empty Spaces” is a closing mournful epic that is the sadness of the previously feared storm clouds and decay and sinks deep into mourning and loss, which are tangible and heavy.

I think the immaculate crystalline music and production on Demon Slayer boosts these songs and elevates them beyond mere dream pop or indie pop directly to greatness.  Yes, there’s a lot to like here while bopping around.  The melodies are indescribably fantastic, and yet they are grounded with drama and feeling.  This is not superfluous.  This is important.  The lesson I’ve learned from this collection of songs is that being vulnerable and open is a strength and though it may open one up to harsher lows, it can bring bigger highs, but it’s still good to take a break and take care.  That openness is perfectly reflected by Jossi's 4AD/Vaughan Oliver/Chris Biggs inspired cover art depicting a hairless cat evoking the nakedness of vulnerability.  It’s difficult to believe that these two have never actually met in person, because the music they create is so perfect.  Please do not miss this. 

(https://theblueherons1.bandcamp.com/album/demon-slayer)

The Blue Herons "Fight or Flight"

Bringin' on the Heartbreak

 

There’s a scene near the end of Wes Anderson’s 2001 movie The Royal Tenenbaums where Ben Stiller’s character, Chas Tenenbaum, emotionally breaks and says “I’ve had a rough year, dad.”  It’s almost too much for me to watch, and one of several moments during this quirky movie that never fail to get me emotional.  It has always resonated with me in a way that I haven’t fully understood.

 

This past summer, I had two medical procedures to insert five stents in around my heart to clear some blockages.  After awakening in the post op recovery room after the first procedure, my senses were flooded with a surprisingly loud presence of the Def Leppard song “Bringin’ on the Heartbreak.”  In that moment, I could not remember the band's name, so like the nerd I am, I began calling out to the entire Recovery unit - anyone.  I’m certain everyone there was born long after the song’s release, so they weren’t privy to its ubiquitous radio presence during the early 80s. They may not have been old enough to be privy to the idea of radio ubiquity.  My guess is that they were playing some kind of streaming service’s “Heart” playlist algorithm – you know, for fun.

As I stirred back to consciousness from the procedure, my squirming brought a nurse over to tell me not to move my legs, because of the incision in my right inner thigh.  She tied some bedding around my leg as a reminder to keep them still.  She moved to the left bedside and introduced herself as Nicole.  I asked her again, if she knew who did the song that was playing, just as Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again” came on.  There goes my “Heart” songs theory.    I guess someone in the room was feeling their 80s hair rock.  Like a drifter they were born to wear cologne.  I chuckled and Nicole asked me what was so funny.  I thought to myself, that it would be fitting that the final flashes of my life would be the music that I couldn’t stop mocking as a teenager.  I twitched my leg and Nicole asked me to relax.  Then she put my left hand into a tight clasp between both her hands.  I could barely make out her smiling eyes floating above a surgical mask. At that point, I knew I was okay and drifted back to sleep.

During my life, I have tried to not be noticed.  I think I’m pretty good at it (see Nowhere Man).  I rarely offer up participation in groups, but if I do, I often try to be first in order to lessen the pressure and be the first to be forgotten.  I try to be as small as I can be despite my size, and I always try to leave space between me and the general public.  I try to blend in as much as possible.  I used to wear concert tees all the time, which would occasionally elicit notice out in public, so I stopped that.  It's not difficult to be forgettable.  I’ve always been generic, because I am.  History and the size of the population tells me so.  There are billions of souls with hopes, ideas, fears, problems, tastes, skills, etc. – all more profound than what I can muster.  It’s an overwhelming realization.  Who am I to believe that anything about me is worthy of notice? 

I get that I have posted these occasional poor health missives for potential public consumption over several years, which is antithetical to my stated efforts to not call attention to myself.  I do not do it for notice, or for sympathy.  I do it to sort out my own feelings.  I write these things to settle my thoughts.  The act of writing helps to calm my anxieties.  Plus, I feel safe in my little anonymous corner of the internet and the mostly abandoned realm of blogs.  If there is a public side, I’d hope to maybe spark conversation about health experiences and health care and just life in general. 

 

Because of the stents being placed near my heart, I was prescribed 36 sessions of Cardiac Rehab, which is comprised of two hour long sessions a week at a gym within a hospital that is supervised by several on staff exercise physiologists.  They keep an eye on us via heart monitors, routine blood pressure checks, and observation.  I love it.  It makes me feel like I’m taking an active role in improving my health and life, which, like the writing helps give me purpose.  I enjoy casually learning about my fellow patients and learning about their health experiences and how they wound up at Cardiac Rehab, and I enjoy the check-ins by the staff who are all very kind and motivating. 

Recently, I was scheduled for an Endoscopic Ultrasound to get a closer look via biopsy at some “concerning” cyst growth in my pancreas.  The procedure is pretty simple, and I’ve been through it before (see Here’s Where theStory Ends).  I know that VHL cysts in the pancreas are benign, but I’m okay with them looking closer to be safe.  A few days before the procedure, while at Cardiac Rehab, Hannah, the best of the exercise physiologists approached me while I was flailing around on a recumbent bike.  She was there to ask me about my daily exercise routine, to take my BP, and to answer any questions I might have.  I reported to her that I was about to go in for this minor procedure, because I had previously been informed that I should alert the staff of any new medical news.  Hannah asked me how I was doing, and how I felt about it.  I think I grumbled something about “futility” and “being tired,” and Hannah retorted with encouraging specific evidence about my progress since beginning the classes, and dammit, I broke!  An instant flood of emotions rushed up into my nose.  It was as if she pushed a button that unlocked a lot of unresolved pain.  Sure, we both knew that this procedure was not serious, but for me, it felt like a breaking point after a lifetime of struggle.  Is this what it means when people say they “feel seen?”  Was this me allowing myself to be “seen,” or was I simply caught in a flash of light before scurrying into the shadows like a cockroach?  

Ever since that moment, I’ve been a ball of conflicting emotions with bouts of excited optimism mixed with total unflinching despair.  The optimism?  Maybe I’m beginning to realize that being seen is not so bad.  That it’s okay to ask for and accept help, and to trust, and to admit that I’ve had a rough stretch..  The despair?  I wonder if I’ve waited too long to learn this lesson.  My efforts to be alone have been pretty damn successful, so now I feel like I’m left with no shoulder to lean into and say “I’ve had a rough year.”