The Amazons explore a new direction on ‘How Will I Know If Heaven Will Find Me?’
The Amazons’ third studio album sees the band adopt a softer and more optimistic sound, with hints of country and folk.
★★★☆☆
Photo: Ed Cook
I remember the day The Amazons’ second album, Future Dust, came out in 2019. I had recently moved to London and listening to Future Dust on repeat week after week quickly became my coping mechanism for dealing with all the emotions that came with such a major change. The darkness and heaviness of their second venture satisfied all my needs as a die-hard hard-rock fan and I found myself going back to it in the many months that followed.
The Reading quartet’s third studio album, How Will I Know If Heaven Will Find Me? is… different. Mostly written on the acoustic guitar by frontman Matt Thomson during the pandemic as a way of connecting with his partner and dealing with the difficulty of her absence, the album is deeply sentimental, with a softer sound than the band’s previous records. It’s an emotional rollercoaster, with vivid descriptions of sadness, desperation and hopelessness followed by an intense rush of optimism and energy.
The album’s first track, How Will I Know?, immediately sets the tone. It’s a powerful start to the album, with prominent guitars and strong vocals. The second track, Bloodrush, sounds like an instant festival favourite and is a continuation of the hopeful tone set by the album’s opener.
The most surprising song on the record was the third track, Say It Again. The country/folk influence is immediately recognizable here. It reminds me of my college days in North Carolina – a sound and a vibe I would never expect to hear from a British band like The Amazons. Although, admittedly it’s quite catchy.
Next up is There’s A Light: the bassline is pretty cool and it has a relatively interesting guitar solo towards the end. The following track, Northern Star, is a love song that has the potential to appeal to a more mainstream audience. The country influence continues on this intimate and sentimental track.
The next one, Wait For Me, teeters on the edge of being a pop-punk track and is the gateway for the next two songs, in which The Amazons return to their heavier, darker sound. One By One has a different vibe than the rest of the album, both sonically and lyrically. They bring back their signature shredding in the second half of the song.
Ready For Something follows One By One. Here, The Amazons serve their new-found optimism with a classic banger. Describing the anxiety and restlessness of lockdown life with mind-blowing riffs, Ready For Something, for me, is the strongest track on the album.
The next track, For The Night, is a piano ballad with vocals in the forefront. Matt Thomson is killing it, vocally, but the pace change feels ever-so-slightly awkward. In The Morning marks the return to the defining soft rock sound of the album. The Amazons close the album with I’m Not Ready. Seemingly written after Thomson reunites with his partner, the track ends the album on a jubilant note.
Overall, this is a very relatable album; touching on pandemic anxiety, loneliness and the eagerness of wanting things to return to normal, but it is also filled with optimism, energy and hope for the future.
How Will I Know If Heaven Will Find Me? is out now via Fiction Records.