The Amity Affliction are back in the trenches, with their new album ‘House Of Cards’ locked for April 24th, the Queensland heavyweights have released ‘Heaven Sent’, a track that cuts deep even by their standards.
Following earlier singles ‘BLEED’ and ‘HOUSE OF CARDS’, this latest release pushes further into the band’s darker headspace, there’s no attempt to soften the edges here. ‘Heaven Sent’ leans hard into the kind of emotional weight that’s always defined Amity, but this time it feels more exposed, less filtered.
A deeper wound, laid bare
At the centre of ‘Heaven Sent’ is frontman Joel Birch confronting a memory that still lingers, it’s not dressed up or abstracted, it’s direct, uncomfortable, and hard to shake.
“This is one of the darker songs on the album, the first line references one of a handful of memories I have from when I was really young and my step father still smoked. He put his cigarette out on my arm at a party and then played it off as an accident, my mother was busy getting drunk and brushed it off and told me to keep it moving, basically. The rest of the song is a snapshot of my home life in some ways and the way the abuse was cyclical in nature and always prefaced by or followed by “I love you” which obviously creates some strange and unhealthy ways for a young person to understand their relationship to a parent.”
It’s heavy subject matter, even for a band that’s built a career on confronting trauma head on, but what stands out here is the clarity, there’s no metaphor to hide behind.
The Amity Affliction “Heaven Sent” (lyric video)
‘House Of Cards’ era takes shape
If the early singles hinted at where ‘House Of Cards’ was heading, ‘Heaven Sent’ makes it clear this record won’t pull punches, the band are stepping into sharper, more aggressive territory, both musically and lyrically.
There’s a sense that Amity aren’t trying to reinvent themselves, but rather strip things back to their core instincts. Which is what we want right? If it’s not broken, don’t fix it.

The Amity Affliction ‘House Of Cards’ Track Listing
- Vida Nueva
- Kickboxer
- House Of Cards
- Heaven Sent
- Bleed
- Break These Chains
- Beso De La Muerte
- Swan Dive
- Speaking In Tongues
- Afterlife
- Reap What You Sow
- Eternal War
Pre order here
Momentum heading into release
2026 is already shaping up as a relentless year for the band, between regional Australian shows and plans for international touring across North America, the UK and Europe, Amity aren’t slowing down.
And if ‘Heaven Sent’ is anything to go by, ‘House Of Cards’ won’t just revisit familiar ground, it’s digging deeper into it.
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