The Heavy

The Heavy carved out a distinctive niche in the 2010s by blending funk, soul, hip-hop, and raw-edged rock, earning widespread pop-culture exposure primarily through the vintage-soul track “How You Like Me Now?,” which appeared across numerous films, series, commercials, and games. That licensing strategy sustained the English quartet as they placed additional cuts such as “Short Change Hero” and “What Makes a Good Man?” in similar media outlets while issuing strong studio sets including the 2016 release Hurt & the Merciless and the 2019 album Sons. Their high-octane live performances turned them into regulars on international festival bills, and the group resurfaced in 2023 with Amen, their sixth full-length.

Guitarist Dan Taylor and singer Kelvin Swaby first connected in Bath during the 1990s through a mutual love of classic R&B and Jim Jarmusch movies. Adding bassist Spencer Page, drummer Chris Ellul, and keyboardist Hannah Collins, they formed the Heavy, merging Taylor’s jagged guitar lines with lo-fi samples, brass figures, heavy percussion, and Swaby’s expressive vocals. The band issued early singles on Counter, a Ninja Tune imprint based in London, before unveiling their debut album Great Vengeance & Furious Fire in 2007; an American edition arrived the following year on the newly established +1 Records.

Collins departed before the 2009 follow-up, The House That Dirt Built. Although it did not register on the charts, the LP gained traction via prominent placements for the singles “Short Change Hero” and “How You Like Me Now?,” the latter a Dyke & the Blazers–sampling number featuring the Dap-Kings Horns. Both tracks received extensive film and advertising licensing, and “How You Like Me Now?” eventually earned gold certification stateside. Three years afterward the self-produced The Glorious Dead appeared, tracked in Columbus, Georgia, where the band leaned further into Southern soul textures and scored a modest hit with the gritty “What Makes a Good Man?” Like its predecessor, the album reached the Billboard 200. Continued road work and further media syncs kept the group visible.

In 2016 the Heavy delivered Hurt & the Merciless, again self-produced and captured in Bath to replicate the immediacy of their earliest recordings and stage shows. Their first U.K. chart entry, it peaked at number 36 and performed well across Europe. Major festival appearances at Coachella, SXSW, and Fuji Rock followed, and the decade closed with 2019’s Sons, a stylistically varied set that returned them to the American charts at number 31 on the Top Independent Albums tally. With Swaby now based in the United States while the remaining members stayed in the U.K., the band took an extended period to craft their next record. Incorporating gospel harmonies, 1960s-flavored R&B guitar lines, and forceful rock drive, they emerged in 2023 with the Tchad Blake–produced Amen.