In Amber

Hercules & Love Affair

Released on 17-06-2022 by Skint Records
Main artists: Hercules & Love Affair
Genre: Electronic

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As great as Hercules & Love Affair are at innovative dance music, the direction they've taken since 2017's Omnion is exciting in an entirely different way. They've always brought a remarkable amount of feeling to their music, and they've skillfully translated the drama they brought to the dance floor into majestic, complicated, unabashedly revealing songs on In Amber. Even those who loved Omnion might not be entirely prepared for the honesty with which they tap into hypocrisy, loss, and redemption on this album, however. From the foreboding shrouded figure on its artwork to its candid songwriting and artful production, there's a sense of reckoning that makes In Amber a stunning, often unnerving experience. The album begins with a string of songs so intense, they'd be the climaxes of lesser works. "I don't need to be given permission/By some sort of apparition," Andy Butler sings over spidery post-punk guitars and a nagging piano loop on "Grace"; though he's declaring himself independent of organized religion, there's still some of the communal feel of dance music in its shared vocals and the way the beat pushes the emotional momentum forward. With its four-on-the-floor thump, "One" revisits Hercules & Love Affair's roots and reunites them with Anohni, who helped make 2008's "Blind" one of their classic singles. Their chemistry is still potent here, with Anohni giving a defiant glamor to its darkly empowering pulse. After coming full circle, Butler and company dive into uncharted territory with the stately, mournful chamber pop of "You've Won This War" and the scathing industrial blasts of "Christian Outrage," which showcases Anohni as a goddess of vengeance. Both songs are like little else in the Hercules & Love Affair songbook and show how much they've expanded their musical vocabulary to express In Amber's anger, trauma, and recovery: there's an ache in the album's weighty, deliberate drums, while the synths evoke simmering resentment, prickly bitterness, or, more occasionally, a ray of hope. The record's other tracks with Anhoni capture In Amber's fascinating mix of elegance and brutality particularly well. She's perfectly cast as a muse of grief and anger, whether she rings out from clattering electronics and percussion on "Contempt for You" or brings a torchy intimacy to the haunted ruins of "Who Will Save Us Now?" As the album draws to a close, Butler imagines new ways of thinking and feeling, and with "Repent"'s acoustic meditation on acceptance, he leaves pain and injustice in the past like fossils. As bleak as In Amber can be, it's as thrilling to hear such unguarded yet exquisitely crafted confessions from Hercules & Love Affair as it was to have them transport listeners to dance floor nirvana.

© Heather Phares /TiVo

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In Amber

Hercules & Love Affair

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