House, disco blend makes debut timeless

Hercules and Love Affair’s new album is both brooding and fun.

By Jordan Sargent

Published June 4, 2008

Though released this month, Hercules and Love Affair’s brilliant, self-titled, debut album was born five years ago.

That’s when Andy Butler, the mastermind behind H&LA, recorded a demo for “Blind,” the song that would ultimately get him signed by powerhouse New York City label DFA, become the album’s first single and make him big-upped by both mainland critics and real-life, European buyers.

“Blind” is an impossibly huge, bright, thumping, camp disco song. It’s a blatant homage, but within the song, much like within the album itself, lie qualities that make Hercules and Love Affair timeless instead of revivalist: great ideas, precision and passion.

Butler is both a fan of and a student of the music he mines for his debut album, be it the disco of the ‘70s or the pulsating house of the ‘80s. As a result, the album is constructed with the delicacy one would expect from someone who obviously wants to get it right. The care with which the album seems to have been made is perhaps its most striking feature. Where some would turn meticulousness into staidness, Butler took pains to stay on the other side of predictable.

Looking at the track list, one would assume Hercules and Love Affair is heavily frontloaded. Three of the album’s first five songs (out of 10) are the big disco tracks that made Butler so hyped in the first place: the aforementioned “Blind,” as well as “Athene” and “Hercules Theme” — the best of the bunch. All three are worthy of the praise they’ve received. “Blind” soars into space on the back of a heroic vocal performance by Antony Hegarty, who turns out to be the proverbial ace up Butler’s sleeve, while “Athene” is the slinkiest of the three, with rubbery horns, rattling Caribbean percussion and pretty, lilting keys. “Hercules Theme,” Butler’s so-called theme song, is a total fucking blast, all moans and pants and horns hypothetically spurting confetti leading up to the album’s best climax, strut and breakdown.

But it’s the other two songs in the first five that indicate Butler’s genius goes far past one really, really deft trick. Opener “Time Will” and third joint “You Belong” are both down-tempo, brooding, muscular house tracks, but not only are they not filler, they — along with the album’s decidedly moodier second half — make up much of the album’s heart. “You Belong” especially, with its aching “You belong to him tonight/there’s nothing I can do” line, might be the album’s emotional core, and like the best songs on the album, it slowly builds into an overwhelming final 90 seconds.

Side 2 starts off with the metallic and solemn “Iris,” another song, like “You Belong,” that drips with pathos, but this time hope emanates from the brood: “Don’t give up on your desires.” It’s followed by “Easy,” an almost-dirge that might be the album’s only weak song. The slack, though, is more than picked up by “This Is My Love,” whose jittery and tense first half blossoms into an uplifting second-half breakdown, propelled mostly by beautifully woozy but insistent horn solos. The final two songs, closer “True False/Fake Real” in particular, end the album on a whimsical note without sacrificing the band’s flair for the dramatic.

Drama is so important to Hercules and Love Affair’s success because it allows Butler to traverse both feelings of ecstasy and despair without ever sacrificing the delirious fun of his album. And when it comes to dance — especially disco — fun is king but no small feat. Consider, then, Andy Butler’s debut album to be Herculean.