“Flying like you’re limitless, headed for oblivion”
Cosmic Americana. Ever heard of it? I would bet a fiver you haven’t. And for the record that isn’t a serious bet, I can’t possibly wager 5 quid to everyone reading.
Until a few days ago the concept was foreign to me, one of the small minute things within music I was not familiar with. But now I’ve engaged with it, I wish to be engulfed by it, and subsequently make it my whole personality.
Cosmic Americana isn’t a universal descriptor, but it is what Scottish singer-songwriter Alex Amor refers her music as, a combination of an atmospheric and celestial-like Dream pop focus, with little twangs and fragments of country and folk.
Even before getting the chance to listen to Amor’s full-length debut “Heavenly Bodies”, I was reigned in, I had heard plenty of dream pop in my time, it’s become a regular escape in the case I find myself on a late-night walk. It just suits the nightly atmosphere, the hazy melodies dashing against the grey skies. Or the pouring rain. We are in the UK after all.
So, shall we take-off into the Cosmic Americana Cosmos? ‘As Above, So Below’ starts the journey of Heavenly Bodies, and from the offset, you get a strong sense for what this record will be comprised of. Dreamy and spacious synths, that give the record it’s cosmic resonance. Guitars that can either add to that faraway feeling, or can delve into the americana stylings, the strings twanging and reverberating. And Alex Amor’s angelic voice, as she sets us off on a self-described navigation of “loss, love and liminal spaces”
Alex Amor’s journey through what was a period of change in her life, a move from London to Brighton, with an extended period in her hometown of Glasgow, and a fascination with the celestial, and the links drawn upon our real lives. ‘Meet On The Moon’ focuses on the loss of a dear friend, whom Amor had a clear affinity for, singing “She’s brighter than the northern star” and “how she danced the night away”. ‘Roses’ is a slow contemplative track as the full effects of grief are realised, with Amor remarking she still talks out loud “just in case, through time and space you’ll hear my words somehow”, highlighting the celestial connection felt.
On the more positive side of the galaxy, songs like ‘Seeing Angels’ and ‘Aquamarine’ focus on intimate and personal confessions of love, perhaps one that’s in the phase of reforming or blooming into new life, like a bright star forming in space. The former focuses on a loved looking to change, and, judging by the phrasing in the chorus, become reborn again, with this loving going through hell and back. The latter sees Amor plead for a lover to commit to the relationship fully and take that dive into the unknown. The dive could be into a pool of potential love, but with the album’s astral focus, I’d like to think there’s an equivalent up in the great unknown.
Heavenly Bodies also angles into the sphere of what Alex Amor describes as “complex female rage”, seen in the groovy ‘Avalanche’, a song about the moment in a relationship when something has shifted, and how your partner is unwilling to recognise the glaring cracks and issues that have reared their ugly head in, and the surprisingly ominous ‘This Must Be The End’, as Amor’s frustration is it a controlled peak, the chorus in particular with its devasting nature, in the back to back lines of “In the thrill of it all, we tried to pretend. This must be the end”, contrasted by the echoey and expansive vocals present throughout.
And if you’re looking for a track that really lands on the Cosmic theme present on the album, look no further than the brilliant ‘Icarus’, based on, of course, the famous story of the mortal who died after flying too close to sun, which caused his wings made of beeswax. In this case, the song came from Amor seeing too many men in her life struggle with addiction and self-destructive patterns, as the song reflects on an innate human desire to find escape in something, anything, and the powerless nature of loving someone constantly finding their way into oblivion.
Our journey through the Cosmic Americana Cosmos lands at closer ‘Only The Beginning’, a fitting name for a finale. Amor finally accepts that this relationship that she’s tried to wrestle with and restore cannot be amended. It is a bright star that has not exploded, Amor’s own supernova if you will.
I thought I already knew the space that engulfs our tiny little rock, but this dive into Alex Amor’s Heavenly Bodies has been both pleasant and deeply reflecting. A powerful journey of desperate love and irreparable heartbreak soundtracked by stunning synths and strings. And a voice that truly is heaven sent. All hail the Cosmic Americana Cosmos!
Alex Amor: Heavenly Bodies – Released 21 August 2026 (Vero Music)
