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January 13, 2023 – The Heavy have announced their new album AMEN, out April 21 and available to pre-order now. Some of their finest work yet, AMEN boasts 10 new songs of relentless energy from The Heavy, a band that has spent the past decade soundtracking huge moments in pop culture with their distinct brand of seditious blues drama, soul and gospel passion, the crunch of prime hip-hop and garage punk’s visceral electricity. To name a few: their music battered at the winter cabin windows of Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight, swept Obama to a second term and knocked Mark Wahlberg for six in The Fighter. The Heavy also made history as the first band to get an encore demand from David Letterman on The Late Show, a show they’ve performed on twice, in addition to performances on The Daily Show, CBS Saturday Morning, and CONAN.
Marking the announcement, they have unleashed the first taste of the record with new single “Hurricane Coming.” Tearing through like a buzz funk tornado, “Hurricane Coming” kicks the door down on the new era of The Heavy, opening their sixth album with an exhilarating maelstrom of ‘60s R&B riffs, horns and gospel harmonies.
It was inspired by frontman Kelvin Swaby who was caught up in Hurricane Irma soon after moving to the US. “The power of that, and it only touched us at, like, a category one,” he recalls. “It's just the way that relationships are as well. It was like ‘just be careful of taking something beautiful for granted’. Don't take people for fools. There's always something waiting, lurking, even...”
Watch the video for “Hurricane Coming” here: https://theheavyuk.lnk.to/HurricaneComingMV
With Daniel Taylor (guitar), Spencer Page (bass) and Chris Ellul (drums) remaining in the UK, the songs on AMEN were written during sessions in Florida at the end of their 2019 US tour and demoed when Kelvin visited the UK in February 2020. AMEN was recorded at Rockfield Studios, produced with Tchad Blake (The Black Keys, U2), and engineered with Real World Studios’ Joe Jones.
Alongside “Hurricane Coming,” there’s the grimy swamp glam of “Bad Muthafucker” and gnarled roadhouse rocker “Stone Cold Killer” (about Dan’s new kitten - “that beautiful thing kills everything”) that bristle with the same untamed energies, inspired by Dan’s recent submersion into the YouTube channel of Alan Lomax’s classic field recordings. “I Feel The Love” jumps with Pentecostal pop fever full of Mississippi heat. “Ain’t A Love” tells the story of a deceitful old flame returning to town in dark, lumbering tones akin to a Morricone carnival. “Messin’ With My Mind” imagines 70s UK punk band The Stranglers as a bunch of ragged Southern shack shakers.
If much of the album finds Kelvin dredging the murkier depths of the romantic experience, there are hints of wider turmoil too. “I think we write very, very ambiguous songs that can be for a number of situations,” says Kelvin. “We've tackled that but there's other shit going on in ‘Just Like Summer’ as well, and throughout the whole of the record. It's not just a relationship with your partner, it’s an environmental relationship, how we're being looked after. There are so many divisions being sewn across the planet. There's so much ‘truth’ that’s not truth. They'll sell us all shit and we’re assuming that it’s gold. We have voices.”
With the new music revealed today, the band has also announced headline tour dates for 2023. They will kick things off with two intimate UK shows in March and then will return for a full tour in September across the UK and Europe. Tickets go on sale on Friday 27th January at 10am local and full dates are listed below.
Formed in 2007, four friends in Bath, UK constructed the sample-heavy “bedroom” debut album Great Vengeance And Furious Fire, released on Ninja Tune’s rock imprint Counter Records. A live performance of “How You Like Me Now?” - the lead single from 2009’s second album The House That Dirt Built - on The Late Show With David Letterman punted them straight into the American psyche. The track was selected to soundtrack a 2010 Super Bowl commercial, TV programs including The Vampire Diaries, Entourage and Community, films including The Fighter, Horrible Bosses, Limitless, The Expendables 3, and video games including Driver: San Francisco and MLB 10. All played on the drama exuding from its corrupted soul, an attribute that makes The Heavy’s music naturally cinematic. The song became so ubiquitous in the States that it was “How You Like Me Know?” which played over the speakers at Barack Obama’s HQ in Chicago to declare his victory in the 2012 Presidential election. 2012’s The Glorious Dead catapulted tracks including ‘Same ‘Ol’ and “What Makes A Good Man?” onto even more key films, shows and commercials including the trailer for Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight.
The Heavy have pioneered a very modern method of rock’n’roll survival and prosperity; they were arguably the 21st Century’s first major sync sensation. The band expanded the scope and ambition of their sound over 2016’s Hurt & The Merciless and 2019’s Sons.
Pre-order AMEN: https://theheavyuk.lnk.to/AMEN
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