Top 5 On Friday – Ripplefest Texas (The 1st 5 bands announced that sold me!)
This will be my very first Ripplefest Texas experience, which will take place in Austin, Texas on September 17th through the 20th 2026. After attending my first Planet Desert Rock Festival in Las Vegas this past January (review here), I knew that this was gonna be the start of something big, for the heavy underground music scene that I belong to. Ripplefest is the other big heavy rock festival in the United States that I know that I should go to. The event is held in Austin, Texas, usually in September. Ryan Garney (vocalist for High Desert Queen) and curator of Ripplefest Texas with his own Lick Of My Spoon Productions, is the one who has started the Ripplefest Texas movement and continues to keep it going. I am certain that I will see a lot of the same people from Planet Desert Rock at this big “family” gathering. I am super excited to attend! I will share the first five bands that really got me to purchase tickets for this year’s festival. So many new bands have since been added to the lineup but these initial five bands really sealed the deal for me right away and prompted me to get the four day pass before the prices increased. I will attempt to put them in order of importance, for me. The list just keeps growing but these initial five, had the biggest impact on me. Check out my “first five” Planet Desert Rock post. I am not sure that I will highlight every band playing like I did with Planet Desert Rock but I plan on doing a few of these Top 5 On Friday posts leading up to the event this coming September. So here we go with the first batch of bands that actually prompted me to order the tickets.
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1. GREENLEAF
Greenleaf (from Sweden) are one of my absolute favorite bands in the heavy underground music scene today. I have been a fan of theirs since the early 2000’s when both 2001’s Revolution Rock and 2003’s Secret Alphabets were out. I remember listening to both of those records back to back often. What started as a side project for guitarist Tommi,Holappa turned into a very prominent band in the heavy underground. I remember waiting for 2007’s Agents Of Ahriman to come out and was excited that Oskar Cedermalm from the Truckfighters was the primary singer on that one. I loved the amazing follow-up with Oskar, 2012’s Nest Of Vipers also! I dug how Greenleaf would feature guest vocalist on their albums, including Fredrik Nordin (Dozer), Pedar Bergstrand (Lowrider), and many others. When they recruited Arvid Hallagard for 2014’s Trails & Passes record, I knew they had found their perfect full time vocalist. All of the records with Arvid are amazing! Starting with Trails & Passes, 2016’s Rise Above The Meadows, 2018’s Hear The Rivers, 2021’s Echoes From A Mass, and their latest 2024’s The Head And The Habit, are all amazing! I love all nine of their albums and feel that they have never written one bad song! They’ve had some excellent drummers too, including Karl Daniel Liden (engineer extraordinaire) who played on the first two records, to former Dozer drummers Erik Backwall and Olle Marthans, to their current amazing drummer, Sebastian Olsson. A few notable bass players were Bengt Backe (engineer), Johan Rockner (Dozer) and their current bassist, Hans Frohlich. The one constant in Greenleaf is the chief songwriter, riff master, and guitar wizard, Tommi Holappa. I’ve been waiting many years to see Greenleaf live! Thanks to Ryan and Ripplefest Texas, Greenleaf will make their United States debut this coming September. To top things off, they are also scheduled to play at next year’s Planet Desert Rock Festival, which I am attending also.
2. SOLACE
Solace is another longtime favorite band of mine from back in the 2000’s. I heard their music when 2000’s Further and 2003’s 13 were already out, along with their Split with GREATDAYFORUP. 2007’s The Black Black was their comeback album andI was a big fan of A.D. also and saw the band live twice in the Boston area, when Jason was still singing for them. I really dig 2019’s The Brink too and I’m looking forward to seeing Justin on vocals. They are set to release a new record later this year on Magnetic Eye Records, and I couldn’t be more excited to hear new Solace material! They’re an amazing band that has never let me down and I think they were grossly underrated back then. They are definitely one of the best around and I’m kicking myself for missing Planet Desert Rock in 2025, when they performed in Vegas. Like Greenleaf, I never heard a Solace song that I didn’t like. They write amazing music and both Justin and Jason are and were excellent vocalists for the band. The rest of the lineup includes Tommy Southard on guitars, Justin Daniels on guitars, Tim Schoenleber on drums, and Mike Sicaon on bass. I attempted to rate their five LPs on a Top 5 On Friday post awhile back, but the order is probably different today than it was back then. Solace was a big part on why I purchased a ticket and I am super excited to see them play live again, after so many years.
3. KAL-EL
One of my newest favorite bands, Kal-El (from Norway) was also one of the early additions for this event. Last year’s Astral Voyager Vol 1 was one of my favorite albums of 2025. It’s such an amazing record and the band is releasing Astral Voyager Vol 2 , at the end of March 2026. I was so amazed with this band and dug deep inside their discography. I even did a Top 5 On Friday specifically about Kal-El and their five previous releases before Astral Voyager. Those albums include: 2013’s Pakal, 2015’s Ecosphere, 2017’s Astrodoomeda, 2019s Witches of Mars, and 2021’s Dark Majesty. They also released three EPs including 2012’s Dark Moon Voyage (demo), 2015’s Cosmic Void, and 2023’s Moon People. The band members are Bjørn Harald “Bjudas” Stornes on drums, Ståle “Captain” Rodvelt on vocals, Kristoffer “Doffy” Ranaweera on guitar, Joshua “Josh” Bisama on guitar, and Bjørn Olav Knutsen on bass. I was super lucky to see them live last October (review here) and they were absolutely crushing and amazing too! I was very excited when I found out that they were returning to Ripplefest Texas. I am almost certain that the latest, Astral Voyager, Vol 2 will be another top contender and witnessing them live again will solidify my love and excitement that I have for Kal-El. Believe the hype about how awesome this band is because it is absolutely true!
4. BORRACHO
The Washington DC three-piece have been on a musical rampage lately, scoring an amazing 2025 album called Ouroboros and just releasing a covers tribute EP called Eternos. Borracho sounds amazing on record and I have yet to see them live but I can only imagine that they will rip. They have such a dynamic and heavy groove that sounds amazing! I am very excited to see them! Their releases include: 2011’s Splitting Sky, 2013’s Oculus, 2016’s Atacama, 2021’s Pound Of Flesh, 2023’s Blurring The Lines, 2025’s Ouroboros, and their latest, Eternos EP. They have many EP’s, singles, etc. available too. The band consists of Steve Fisher on guitar and vocals, Tim Martin on bass and backing vocals, and Mario Trubiano on drums.
5. BLUE HERON
Blue Heron is another band that I’m very excited to see! I find they have a very original sound that incorporates, heavy duty stoner rock and doom, with great desert grooves. Jadd Shickler, who also runs and owns Blues Funeral Recordings and Magnetic Eye Records has a dynamic voice that is both clean and raspy. It is very fitting to the devastating music! I like that the recordings are kind of raw and not overproduced at all. It adds an organic element to their sound and I can only imagine how nasty they will be live. The band is from Albuquerque, New Mexico and includes Jadd Shickler on vocals, Ricardo Sanchez on drums, Steve Schmidlapp on bass, and Mike Chavez on guitars. They have released 2022’s Ephemeral and 2024’s sophomore record, Everything Fades . They also released a Split EP with High Desert Queen in 2023 called, Turn To Stone: Chapter 8 the Wake, on Ripple Music, and most recently, 2025’s Emulations. This band just seems to get better with every album and I am excited that I get to see them at Ripplefest Texas.
