Album Review: Amber Arcades - European Heartbreak

So much has changed in two years. European Heartbreak is a complex concept piece that’s miles away from the zing and dreamy stasis that highlighted Dutch indie-ling Amber Arcades’ debut.

It’s an album that mostly uses the failings of the European political scene as a backdrop or comparison to a broad range of mostly negative personal feelings. It’s made all the more human through the intimacy of its songs and sympathetic arrangements. Alpine Town is every bit as rustic as the title indicates. Lackadaisically sung, you can almost imagine brown and white cows grazing the high-latitude cud somewhere in the snow-capped background.

Elsewhere though, Something’s Gonna Take Your Love Away is a would-be soaring ballad, but for its wounded outlook. Similarly there’s disillusionment and a touch of weariness on Goodnight Europe; the kind you experience with a doomed relationship that continues to drag on, where “It smells like death is coming up through the floors” is sung with surprisingly passive resignation.

It’s this counter-intuitive approach and unexpectedly nuanced storytelling that reveals impressive, hitherto unimagined depths to Amber Arcades’ songcraft. It’s also maybe the cosiest sounding protest album ever.