The Amazons: How will I Know if Heaven will Find Me? - Indie pop joy

Jim Abbiss-produced album originated during lockdown but the final result is expansive

How Will I Know If Heaven Will Find Me
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Artist: The Amazons
Genre: Rock/Pop
Label: Fiction

The Amazons’ third record seeks to harness an expansiveness, a reaction to the confined state we all found ourselves in over the last couple of years. Matt Thomson initially imagined it as a kind of love letter to his long-distance girlfriend in lockdown, a way of “taking control of the situation”. Through further exploration with bandmates Chris Alderton, Elliot Briggs and Joe Emmett, the record went through many iterations before becoming something more wide-reaching, with Thomson describing it as “easily our most joyous album”.

With producer Jim Abbiss (Arctic Monkeys, Arcade Fire), the record rests within the idea of the live aspect, that communal experience that can lift – so everything sounds amplified and pumped up – the driving drums on How Will I Know? and the intensity of Bloodrush. Say It Again, with its broken beats and clear guitars dance around Thomson’s folk-influenced vocal, and There’s A Light channels The Killers-meets-The Cure groove, with Northern Star drawing a jangly guitar-led soundscape. Wait For Me is all strident, heavy guitars, and One By One pares things back, making good use of Thomson’s vocal.

Ready For Something brings a scuzzy weightiness, which weaves through the balladeering of For the Night. The glassy guitar sound of In The Morning prefaces the majorly anthemic I’m Not Ready, which is all indie-pop joy.

Siobhán Kane

Siobhán Kane is a contributor to The Irish Times specialising in culture