Barefoot on diamond road

"De Graaf sounds like she was going through a lot when making the record - not too surprising since COVID-19 was ravaging the globe at the time - and she manages to capture heaviness and bleakness but she makes it beautiful and immensely moving. At times, the first two Amber Arcades albums felt like they were made by someone feeling her way toward something better; Barefoot on Diamond Road is where de Graaf arrives".

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"Barefoot On Diamond Road is the third album from the Netherlands's Amber Arcades, the recording persona of Annelotte de Graaf. Away from music, her work as a lawyer has brought a role in the international war crimes tribunal. Previously, her music was a form of Eighties-ish indie with touches of shoegazing. Beyond her glass-like voice, guitar was a main focus. This is different. De Graaf has embraced a more electronic approach, initially hinted at by "Turning Light" from her 2016 first album Fading Lines. While there's a Billie Eilish "Everything I Wanted" drift or odd intimations of "Born to Die" Lana Del Rey, first passes through the new album evoke El Perro del Mar or a less flinty I Break Horses: both of whom are Swedish. A particularly north European sensibility is at play".

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