Take this album out of my computer’s shitty speakers and put it on in Babylove Club on full blast, pronto. Hercules and Love Affair’s new album, The Feast of the Broken Heart, may be a bit of a mouthful, but it’s one of the best toe-tapping provokers we’ve had all year, with irresistible beats, and the right measure of disco deliciousness to be effortlessly enjoyable without stinking of the cheese floor. Oh, and it’s accompanied by some banging animated looping pictures of broken hearts, cocktails and pink boom-boxes that look like they’ve been drawn by Nick Sharratt for The Story of Tracy Beaker TV show.
The Feast of the Broken Heart opens on ‘Hercules Theme 2014’ with a heavily vocoded voice spelling out the letters of the artist, getting wound up in a mess of layers over the steady, synthy bass beat. A falsetto, nasal voice cuts in to repeat the words in full. It’s followed by a message to “let yourself be” on ‘My Offence (feat. Krystle Warren)’, and the sound of games whistles as bananas fl y from the screen animations. Piano loops intermingle with synth riffs, vocal top layers, and consistent, tinny beats. Hercules and Love Affair, AKA New York DJ Andy Butler, has created something that’s not technically brilliant, but bloody good fun.
