Hercules & Love Affair – In Amber (2022)

For a brief while, Andy Butler’s new album was not a new Hercules & Love Affair record; the content of »In Amber« was too fractured and fraught for that. Here, Butler disarmingly grapples with the ordeal of American Christianity and is more often overcome by its oppressive influence than a Scorsese protagonist. With Anohni’s unrivalled vocal presence interspersed, it somehow truly is a Hercules & Love Affair record for an era in which light-footed disco escapism was impossible on a global scale for two years anyway.