Barefoot on Diamond Road

After making a couple of albums that hewed close to the norms of dream pop (Fading Lines) and cosmic Americana (European Heartbreak,) Annelotte de Graaf thought about where she was headed musically. She decided to take Amber Arcades to places that were unexpected and challenging in a way that her first two records were not. To make Barefoot on Diamond Road, she brought back Ben Greenberg -- who had worked on Fading Lines -- to help craft an album that rarely holds still long enough to be categorized. On the first two albums she seemed stuck in gear or content to travel along in a pleasant straight line; here the tracks are jagged, dramatic, and surprising. There isnt a single song that relies on dream pop tropes or singer/songwriter feels; instead, she and Greenberg strive to create unique structures, sounds, and moods for each song. It swerves from symphonic outer space-country ("Diamond Road") to an insistent ballad thats powered by sawing cellos, bubbling bongos, synth squiggles, and thumping, off-kilter drums, and it sports a sunburst chorus ("Odd to Even"); it goes from a haunting a cappella ballad where de Graafs vocals are fed through a vocoder and processed (Life Is Coming Home") to a moody, menacing track that feels like it could have been lifted from a Massive Attack record ("True Love") while making space for downtuned pseudo-metal ("Im Not There") and a fair amount of dark-of-night trip-hop. The mood itself is dark, de Graafs vocals bleed sadness, the nostalgia is strong, and the not-so-hidden hero of the record is Matt Chamberlain, whose drumming throughout is responsive, powerful, and just right. The three architects of the album work together to make something that, when broken into its disparate parts might seem a bit too random, a little too dark, or maybe ill-advised at times, but when pieced together everything coalesces into something close to a dream. Or maybe close to a nightmare. 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. ~ Tim Sendra