ALBUM REVIEW: The Amazons – How Will I Know If Heaven Will Find Me?

How Will I Know If Heaven Will Find Me?, the third album from The Amazons, is a heartfelt, acoustic-driven turn for the indie band.

The record opens with How Will I Know: a cheery arrangement, driven through pulsating drums, zooming guitar lines and frontman Matt Thomson’s refined vocals; it marks a new sound for the group, full of bright, jangly guitar and vocals tinged with romantic yearning. Like many of his peers, principal songwriter Thomson wrote the album during lockdown, and looking forward towards the future beyond the pandemic era was a driving force behind the positive, optimistic outlook of the material: It’s a running theme: tracks that were clearly devised as acoustic wanderings by the frontman have received the studio treatment, with support from indie veteran producer Jim Abbiss (known for his work with Arctic Monkeys, Adele, Kasabian, and Bombay Bicycle Club).

The result takes the band on a fresh, new path, far from the weighty, darkness of their previous work in 2017’s self-titled debut and 2020’s Future Dust.

The album more or less follows this pattern throughout. Tracks are stripped-back and minimalistic in comparison to previous work and, more often than not, they are vocal-driven, intimate and uplifting. There’s a Light, one of the more restrained songs on offer, lays soft vocals over the scattered, rattling guitar runs, and an infectious, cyclical bass line that builds up into a clash of drums and a sincere choral vocal section. The lead single, Bloodrush is chock-full of chiming guitar, chanting vocals and bright pop-rock. One by One is a minimal entry with real drive that opens as a raw, reverberating acoustic piece, before descending into a cacophony of slashing guitar lines and darker rock, to which Thomson lends his roughest vocals.

At times, however, How Will I Know If Heaven Will Find Me? begins to feel a bit over-indulgent. Songs like Northern Star, an acoustic guitar-laden love song, are loaded with saccharine vocal lines and a whirring chorus that all feels a bit too one-note. The group remedy this with a handful of tracks that are more reminiscent of their previous work; in particular the dark-rock of Ready for Something will satisfy older fans craving something more familiar.

How Will I Know If Heaven Will Find Me? is OUT NOW!