Goff's Pick of the Week-Hercules and Love Affair by Hercules and Love Affair

Imagine that for a moment that you were Antony Hagerty and that it was 2010. You’ve made a name for yourself in the music industry for sure; releasing three albums in the 2000’s all of which were critically acclaimed featuring guests such as Lou Read and Rufus Wainwright, but what’s next? If your answer to that question was not to lend your magical vocal chords to an electronic/disco/funk band, than you aren’t Antony Hagerty, because that is precisely what he did. Hercules and Love Affair is the band in question, and with the addition of Antony’s voice there is no stopping them. There is a lot to be said about the songs that Antony appears on, but let’s save that for later and talk about the production of the songs.  Every song on the album is expertly put together, there is no doubting that, no expense was paid or shortcut taken while mixing these excellent tracks. Each song has a sort of lost quality to it, like the album had been made sometime in the eighties at the height of disco glory but somehow was rediscovered, no doubt a feeling spurred by the band’s name, the cover of the album, and the themes of the songs, all of which have a reoccurring ancient Greek mythological aesthetic. And a strong aesthetic indeed, the band did their homework for sure. The allusions to mythology are clever, they give the band a unified feeling much like Sleigh Bells with their high school cheerleading thing/pep rally thing. And unlike some bands who embrace an aesthetic too much which can make an album feel uncreative, Hercules and Love Affair mix it up enough that the sound and the songs don’t stagnate. Another interesting aspect of the band and the album is that every song except for one sounds like a deep-cut, which is not to say that every song isn’t good enough to be a single (a few like Isis, Athena, and Raise Me Up are certainly single worthy) I just mean that the one single that is on the album, Blind, is probably good enough to be the single on every album that will ever be made from now on (I never claimed to be unbiased, I write about music I like). As you could have guessed, its Antony Hagerty that lends his vocals to Blind. He also sings on Raise Me Up and a few other tracks from the album. There is something spectacular about his vocals over this type of music, its hard to describe, and nothing at all like the haunting piano numbers he sang on his solo records. Instead of using his soulful bluesy voice for self reflection as he does on all three of his Antony and the Johnsons albums, here he transforms his voice into a powerful force that is hard to ignore. Other tracks on the album that do not feature him have female vocals which are also pretty good and unfortunately underrated because of Antony’s Apollo worthy singing. The tracks with female vocals are more heartfelt than Antony’s and offer up a nice contrast. Tunes like Athena (goddess of wisdom and courage) and Isis (goddess of rainbows) are both sort of remorseful/lamenting making them nothing like the Hagerty tracks which are either celebratory or at worst hopeful.  Those two voices combined singing over great disco/funk/electronic music makes for an interesting album for sure, worth your time certainly.