Available on: Moshi Moshi LP

It opens with ‘Painted Eyes’, a serious swirling six minutes of strings. Strings in Hercules and Love Affair songs are always really good; see their eponymous ‘Theme’ from the self-titled album. We need so little from disco to make us happy, and strings are an unfailing cheat code to satisfaction. On this, they slash down over tense hi-hats, then seep around, then come in single, formidable blocks, then back to the start. All this happens over a feminine vocal asking inanities about eternity: “how can you make forever? How can you make always?” Hot Chip would write a song like this.

‘I Can’t Wait’ is a stupendous song. It features two vocal sections. The first is this ‘90s-sounding, highly expressive “I can’t wait no more/this ain’t no open door”, which swings well with optimism, hope and a degree of pleading. But then it switches into a more dreary, robotic “I won’t bear this cross/I won’t wear these chains/ I will find my own fire” repeated many more times than the first section, and all human fragility is lost. The optimism is sacrificed to the dreary, industrious drudgery of monogamy as the monotonous lines are repeated over and over. It’s just so great.

Bloc Party’s Kele makes a cameo on ‘Step Up’ and it’s as dull as any of his other work. ‘My House’ is a bit insipid. But there are still moments of genius here. ‘Answers Come in Dreams’ could be an encyclopaedia entry on what disco is and what makes it great: robust, clear, but faintly absurd in its po-faced posturing.

Altogether though, Blue Songs is a more serious album than Hercules’ debut, as the title would suggest, and ‘Leonora’ can instantly be added to the “great instrumentation in Hercules songs” playlist straight away. The piano is beautiful. This serpentine line slips over rubbery bass and it’s just wonderful. And then a whispered “she speaks to me” comes in as a coda, trailing off into the distance.

Four seconds into final track ‘It’s Alright’, the opening lyric “dictations forced in Afghanistan” has already been and gone, and soured the atmosphere for the rest of the track. The album can sometimes take itself a bit seriously to be frank. Disco, as I’ve said, is a po-faced genre from the outset, and most of the time this feeds into a gleeful seriousness. But often it can veer into pretentiousness. Political disco songs are probably one such pretension too far.

Overall though, Blue Songs is great. The title is apt and the cover fits; this is an album of totemic gravity, the simplicity and clear-mindedness of taking things seriously. A friend of mine once said he loved Akon because it’s impossible to be overwhelmed or distressed by the world when listening to lyrics like “I want you to dine with me”. Lyrics such as “You gave me 77 reasons to love you that night” on ‘Leonora’ here have a similar power, especially when delivered in a voice of such clarity and self- confidence, over such simplistic bass. Blue Songs maybe most resembles Kind of Blue in its evocation of fragile, courteous dignity. All its songs are sad and easy, but comfortable in this state.

James Hampson