THEY'RE the band of the moment - and they're playing an intimate gig in a Southampton record store. 

Following two huge Top 10 records and sold-out shows across the globe, one of the UK’s most exciting bands, The Amazons, has announced its stratospheric, anthem-packed new album How Will I Know If Heaven Will Find Me will be released on September 9.

The following day, they will appear at Vinilo in Queensway to a tiny bunch of lucky devotees. 

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The record sees the Reading four-piece emerging from the darkness of 2019’s Future Dust full of post-pandemic hope.

It was premiered by Jack Saunders on BBC Radio 1 earlier this week.

Locked down in Brighton a week after returning from a US tour, The Amazons thought they had their third album mostly written. But the prolonged lockdown proved otherwise. After months of seeing his LA-based girlfriend only online, frontman Matt Thomson started writing songs for her which he assumed only the pair of them would ever hear.

“The gap between us was no longer being bridged by WhatsApps and Facetimes,” he says. “I sent letters but that didn’t do it either. We felt further apart than ever. Writing songs about what we’d do when we were together again became my way of taking control. It allowed me to share something truly intimate. Writing songs is how I process life. It’s the best skill I have and being able to use it to fix a problem gave me purpose again.”

In late 2020, with the band already cooling on the music they had previously written, Matt sent his bare bones new songs, written alone at home on acoustic guitar, to his band mates to gauge their opinion. Straight away they knew that he had inadvertently discovered a new direction for The Amazons.

“I said to the boys, enough with the darkness. As cheesy as it sounds, I wanted to make music that was a force for good, after everything we’ve all been through. It’s easily our most joyous album - sonically we set out to celebrate the return of real life and the communal experience of being back at shows.”

Following the record store set, a UK tour in October will see the band headline London’s Roundhouse.

 

 

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