Future Dust

Editors’ Notes Despite its title, The Amazons’ second album was partly inspired by an archeological dig into music’s past. “What we want to do, and what we are going to continue to do after this record, is keep on tapping into something that’s greater than we are,” singer/guitarist Matt Thomson tells Apple Music. “There’s no shame in looking back and acknowledging where we've come from. And rock 'n' roll comes from black, African American music—blues, early country, and jazz. It’s about acknowledging it and being inspired by the spirit and the rawness and the fire of it all.” A heavier and more expansive-sounding Amazons have emerged from these excavations. Drawn from personal experiences and emotions, these muscular and melodic rock songs often reflect the turbulence and confusion of society at large. “We wanted to make something slightly darker,” Thomson says. “We wanted to have more of a voice, to have something to say.” In an exclusive track-by-track guide, he reveals more about the themes and ideas behind Future Dust.

”Mother”
“The themes of this song are influenced by ‘Grinnin' in Your Face,’ a track by Son House, the Delta blues musician. I really wanted to get the fire and inspiration behind that and tackle something more modern. There's a lot of righteousness and judgment today that I'm getting bored of. It’s probably exacerbated by the internet and social media because that’s a nice anonymity cloak for throwing cheap shots without any direct consequence. Forms of communication change, but people's behavior hasn’t really.”

”Fuzzy Tree”
“‘Fuzzy Tree’ is a real practice room jam, arranged in as many minutes as it takes to hear it. It’s about digging yourself into a hole and not being able to get out—saying things in the heat of the moment but the morning after, you don’t feel the same way. The title comes from an Elvis lyric, from ‘All Shook Up,' but because I eat loads of broccoli, the boys all thought I meant that.”

“25”
“This reflects the confusion I felt at reaching the middle of my twenties: I don't really know where I’m at and I don't know where people my age are at. Are we narcissists who are obsessed with trivial Twitter spats? Or are we woke and climate-conscious? It’s probably a bit of everything. I don’t know what will define us. It’s really hard to get real answers because there’s so much going on, a cacophony of information being blasted in our faces every day. It’s a lot more interesting to reflect it in a way that says you don’t have the answers.”

“The Mire”/“Doubt It”
“These two tracks sit together, inspired by a [1982] biography of Jerry Lee Lewis, Hellfire. He’s at the beating heart of rock and roll, right at the beginning. He enjoys going to these clubs, he enjoys drugs, alcohol, and women, this new lifestyle that he’s getting paid for. But his background is super conservative and he’s in a constant to and fro—whether he’s going to become a pastor or immerse himself in the devil’s music. It’s about submitting to temptation—all the bad stuff but all the fun stuff as well, for better or for worse.”

“All Over Town”
“I was talking to my parents about what it was like being single in the ’80s. It was a different vibe: Your world was just in front of you. Your choices were in your immediate sight. ‘All Over Town’ tackles this constant searching for what’s better, never settling—and ending up alone as a result. What actually might make you happy is in front of you, but you can’t see it because you’ve got access to the most amazing, beautiful, interesting, creative, intelligent people right at your fingertips. It distorts what's important.”

“End of Wonder”
“It’s basically about someone who’s struggling with something and the more you scrape at the surface, you see it’s a much bigger problem than you first thought. It’s looking at the struggles that women deal with from a male point of view. Sometimes it takes a more extreme experience to open your eyes a little bit. It’s one of those things that you can’t really imagine but you’ve got to try to do your best to understand.”

“Dark Visions”
“Through my twenties, I’ve got progressively worse at sleeping. Worries and ideas—the hive of activity in my brain—start when the lights go out. I’ve always loved fantasy, whether it’s Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones or whatever, and that’s how I wanted to tackle it: a battle between me and some dark visions or beasts that howl at my door.”

“25 (Reprise)”
“Catherine [Marks, producer] was obsessed with ‘25’ being fun, but I had some alternative lyrics that were more apocalyptic, drawn straight from Hellfire, and I needed somewhere to put them. There was a gorgeous pump organ at the studio, and I thought it matched this biblical, apocalyptic side. We were really afraid Catherine wasn’t going to let us use it because we were running out of time to get everything else down. So we waited for her to go to bed on the final night, then we mic'd up the pump organ at 5 a.m. and started recording. It really makes the record for us.”

“Warning Sign”
“This started as very personal. It’s tackling someone who’s in a very self-destructive moment: ‘Can’t you see what you’re doing? What you think are isolated incidents feel like they’re tallying up to me.’ I guess you can assign it to something broader, but I certainly didn’t until after writing the song. It always has to come from a really personal place. I’m not like, ‘We’re a band, we have to talk about something political.’ You can do whatever the fuck you want as long as it’s real, it’s genuine. So if you want to talk about the ins and outs of Brexit, do it—but in a way that is inspired to you.”

“Georgia”
“We wanted to give this song a lush, West Coast ’70s feel and then attack the lyrics very bluntly. The line ‘You put coins in your all pockets ’cause you know they fool the scales’—if you’ve got an eating disorder, that’s a tactic to fool the scales. But there’s a lot of different interpretations to that as well. Ultimately it’s ‘You don't need to do this; you’ve got so much to do, so much to give. You don't have to succumb to the darkness.’ It's a bit more optimistic and hopeful than ‘End of Wonder’ is.”