Hercules & Love Affair: In Amber | 4ZZZ Brisbane 102.1FM

- It really is no surprise that by 2022 creative artists aren’t feeling all sunshine, lollipops and happy smiles. Leaving the continuing worldwide pandemic to one side, the pace and aggression of the twenty-first century has shaped a society that is flint-like hard, with sharp angles, ready to set a conflagration racing from a small spark of anger. Andy Butler, who created Hercules & Love Affair in 2004, is frustrated, uncomfortable and not happy and his fifth album In Amber, with a variety of eclectic collaborators gives vent to that discomfort. Of it he says "…making a 90’s sounding techno or house record, or an odd 80’s sounding dance track was not anything I needed to do".

Butler, though, has always looked at life if not sideways at least at an abstract angle, fuelled by an unhappy childhood with a less than fantastic home life. Starting out as a DJ at the age of fifteen in a Denver, Colorado leather bar was the first expression of freedom he’d had and subsequently moving to New York in the 1990s had a profound effect, for it was there Butler met ANOHNI. Their first collaboration Blind was an underground dance hit and allowed Butler to gain the attention and respect of the music industry.

Apart from her vocal contributions on the first, eponymous album that contained Blind, ANOHNI and Butler haven’t worked together since – until now. One of the greatest strengths of In Amber is the return of the unique vocals of ANOHNI who performs on half the tracks and each performance is as different from Blind as it is maybe similar. One has those similarities to Blind, a very strong thumping beat and a cracking vocal that colours the lyrics expressing that aforementioned frustration and anger, ANOHNI delivering a take-no-prisoners response that empowers both vocalist and listener.

Christian Prayers is supremely defiant and ANOHNI takes on all the rage that marginalised people have pent up against the faux Christian violent colonist patriarchy and almost shouts that defiance through her vocal performance, set on top of an equally angry instrumental bed. Running through that bed is a drum line that doesn’t sound like anything you’d expect from an act noted for strong dance floor rhythms. That’s courtesy of Butler’s newest collaborator Peter Clarke – better known as Budgie the drummer for Siouxsie and The Banshees and The Creatures. Thanks to a suggestion from ANONHI, who admired his work with The Creatures, Budgie was brought in “to derail some of the arrangements for more impact.” He also lends his voice in the background to one of the advance releases from the album featuring ANOHNI, the aggressive and moody Poisonous Storytelling.

While In Amber has several tracks that allow the expressions of frustration and anger to bubble up (ANONHI’s Contempt for You pulls no punches), there are parts which aren’t that aggressive, at least on the surface. Icelandic singer Elin Ey features on Dissociation which cools the mood down, but still contains the levels of “discomfort” that Butler used as the spur for the creation of this album.

Butler also steps up his vocal contribution. Having been reluctant to feature on the early albums he did venture out on one track on Hercules & Love Affair’s previous release, 2017’s Omnium. He sounds a lot more confident here and this also allows him to give a vulnerable, believable reading to Gates of Separation with its very Nordic Noir piano sound driving the energy through the song. Butler’s vocals open and close the album: Grace is of a similar style to what you’d expect from Hercules & Love Affair. It starts moody and builds on arpeggios played on the piano, Budgie’s “derailed” drum lines and a keyboard mimicking a folk music sounding jolly recorder tune partly prepares you for what follows, though the final track Repent is almost nothing like what has come before – a jangly harpsichord and probably Butler’s clearest vocal of the album. The mesmerising round builds over layered vocals and an almost sunny string trio evoking something similar to Sigur Rós in their early to mid-2000s heyday.

Butler’s relocation to Ghent in Belgium some years ago has influenced a lot of the way he writes and performs the instrumentation for Hercules & Love Affair. If he’d remained in New York perhaps the project would have reached a natural conclusion two albums ago. In Amber doesn’t tick every box perfectly, however, having ANONHI back and Butler pushing himself out further into the “discomfort zone” is good for his music making and longevity.

- Blair Martin.