On 12 April 2018, the song "Goodnight Europe" was released as a single. It was accompanied by a short film which indicated some of the themes from the forthcoming album and previewed excerpts from both the single and other songs, though at this point there was no formal announcement about its release.[11] On 23 April, Amber Arcades announced the release of the new album, along with another single "Simple Song".[1] The third single "Alpine Town" was released on 23 July 2018.[2] Amber Arcades said of the single:
I wrote this song exactly a year ago while on holiday in Guillestre, a small town in the French Alps. I was kind of in a sad place and my boyfriend had dragged me along to get away from all that, but I guess it doesn't really work like that, ha. It just made me reflect on the sad part of the tourist condition as a metaphor for life.
The fourth single "Where Did You Go" was released on 6 August 2018.[3]
Critical reception
European Heartbreak was met with "generally favorable" reviews from critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, this release received an average score of 74, based on 11 reviews.[4] Aggregator Album of the Year gave the release a 71 out of 100 based on a critical consensus of 12 reviews.[12]
