European Heartbreak

Amber Arcades, “European Heartbreak” (Heavenly, 2018)
Similar controversy here as with the transition from Best Coast’s first to second records a few years back. The first Amber Arcades filtered the dream-pop tune-clouds of Brits like the Sundays through the drone-strum US guitar sound developed from the Velvets to the Feelies to Real Estate and beyond. So here’s the follow-up, and the drone is turned way down so as not to drown out more deliberate and convoluted song-structures that owe something to earlier female singer-song-writers (particularly Joni Mitchell) but with a foot still firmly in contemporary Indie-garage-punk. And like Joni, the theme is aging while not being able either to belong to your generation or wash your hands of it, and the melancholy yet acutely present-to-life vibe is Joni-like as well. Verdict: still great, if anything even better.
Try 1/1, 1/ 4, 2/1, 2/3
4/7/19