The Amity Affliction’s ninth studio album was written following the death of singer Joel Birch’s mother. “The overarching theme is my mother—my relationship to my mother, my siblings’ relationship to my mother, my relationship to myself because of my mother,” he tells Apple Music. “And then all the different things that stem from that—that’s the through line of the album.” House of Cards is the first Amity record to feature bassist/vocalist Jonathan Reeves following the firing of his predecessor, Ahren Stringer. Here, Birch walks Apple Music through its key moments. “House of Cards” “I wrote this for my brother and sister. My mum had separated us so much in our lives, where she made each kid feel like they were the shit kid and the other two were amazing. We all thought the other two had a better relationship. Then she died, and we realized she was just playing us off one another the whole time.” “Heaven Sent” “There’s this big thing on this album where it’s like a reflection on what a mother is supposed to be versus what a mother is. My experience was not good. It fucked all three of us up because her love felt fickle. And it felt like we had to constantly be begging or earning it as opposed to just receiving love from a parent. “[The lyric] ‘You call my name, I hear you say/You’re heaven sent’—she used to say shit like that when she was really drunk. It was like happy hour from 4 to 4.30. And then boom, 5.30 onwards, screaming, hitting. “The first line is really rough [‘When his burning cigarette was put out on my arm/You said, “I love you, son.”’]. I have a clear memory of that. I would have been four or five. It was at a party. She just laughed and was like, ‘I love you.’ And moved me along. That’s how life continued with that guy.” “Break These Chains” “That line, ‘I’m sifting through parts of you,’ it’s quite literally going through [my mum’s] house. She was crazy; so paranoid. She was in these Telegram group chats, talking to some guy named Wolfman, and wrapped up in all the QAnon stuff, deep in the abyss. She had a paper shredder for her mail. I’m like, ‘You’re a fucking single mother with no money. You’re just drinking in a fucking granny flat. No one cares about you.’ “She was just so full of shit that going through her stuff I was like, ‘I can’t be like this.’ [The lyric] ‘From blood to blood/From shame to shame/For everything/You ever were/I’ll never be the same’—I’m so hellbent on that because she was such a shitty mother that my whole focus has been to not be a shitty father.” “Speaking in Tongues” “Three times growing up, I was pulled aside by an adult and told I was possessed by devils. I grew up in the Pentecostal church, and this is aggressively looking at my time in the church as a child, and [asking] what effect does an adult telling a child you’ve got devils in you have? I can’t imagine it’s anything good as a carry-on effect in my life and how I looked at myself growing up in my formative years thinking, ‘There’s something wrong with me.’ “First, a teacher told me when I was 11. I told my mum, and my mum being a very paranoid and very over-the-top spiritual person goes to this teacher, listens to the teacher and then has him pray over me. There’s a line in there, ‘Hands laid upon me/That I never asked for.’ It’s like, she led me to that. What a fucking monster. “It comes back to that thing of examining motherhood and what a mother is supposed to be. Mothers are meant to be nurturing and protective. I got the opposite. It’s calling her a hypocrite because she didn’t live a Christian, quote unquote, life.” “Afterlife” “In the first part of the song I say, ‘I tried to put it in the past/But then you died alone.’ My brother and sister and I all gave our mother so much grace. Before I went to see my mum I was like, ‘I’m not gonna ask any questions about my life. I’m gonna give her a clean slate. She’s dying. It’s a bit mean to be like, “Why’d you treat me like this?”’ And she just spat in my face, pretty much. “She died so angry. She cut the three of us off two weeks before she passed away. Told the hospital not to talk to us. So I didn’t know anything for two weeks. Then the hospital called and said, ‘Your mum’s gonna be dead in the next few hours.’ And I was like, ‘I’m not coming down.’ And that was it. “I was angry because I was like, ‘What a waste. I tried to give this woman grace. She could have just died peacefully.’ I was trying to organize for her to come and be in a hospice, which had its own little garden. She wouldn’t have it. “I was like, ‘You tried to force us to believe and then you died alone. You’ll never see that there is beauty right here. What is this idea of Heaven, and what’s wrong with trying to find Heaven here? Because you can find that, whether it’s on a bike, swimming in the ocean, whatever floats your boat. You spent your whole life looking forward to something, and this is how you left. What a waste.’ I would hate to go out like that.”