Heavenly - Highway To Heavenly

In the early 1990s, Heavenly helped define what would later be called indiepop, splitting the difference between the shy melodicism of the UK's Sarah Records scene and the confrontational feminism brewing in Olympia, Washington, home to K Records and the Riot Grrrl movement. Amelia Fletcher and Cathy Rogers cropped their hair and wore pinafores, while Peter Momtchiloff and Rob Pursey refused every cliche of male rock swagger. Four albums into that run, tragedy intervened: drummer Mathew Fletcher, Amelia's brother, died in 1996 shortly before the release of the band's fourth album, Operation Heavenly, and Heavenly quietly retired the name afterward. Highway To Heavenly, their fifth album, arrives thirty years later to finally continue the story.

The songwriting recipe hasn't changed: sharp, political lyrics wrapped in melodies too joyful to feel like medicine. "Scene Stealing" opens the record with a strut that recalls Blondie's "Heart of Glass" while taking aim at self-obsessed influencers who mistreat women. "Portland Town" celebrates a place built on difference, "Press Return" tears into men who confuse wealth and technology with worth, and "Excuse Me" packs two and a half minutes of pure teenage-crush punk energy. The closing "That Last Day" turns grief itself into one of the most singable songs on the record. Drummer Ian Button steps in alongside Fletcher, Rogers, Momtchiloff, and Pursey, with production from Toby Burroughs at Rumbaba Studios.

Heavenly's return arrives at a moment when a new generation of fans, drawn to the band's inclusive, unapologetic feminism, has already found them. Nearly thirty years on, the songs sound just as necessary set against what the band calls the "masculine energy" dominating the current moment.

This LP comes pressed on white vinyl, with a color insert featuring photos and video links, plus a free Highway To Heavenly car-window sticker. A long overdue return from one of indiepop's founding bands.