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Oct 10, 2022As bleak as In Amber can be, it's as thrilling to hear such unguarded yet exquisitely crafted confessions from Hercules & Love Affair as it was to have them transport listeners to dance floor nirvana.
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Aug 24, 2022It’s a moving and bracing exercise in creativity and is ultimately very rewarding – if not always easy – listening experience.
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The WireJul 1, 2022It’s heavy but utterly lovely music, full of grave strings, piano stabs and deep synth reverberations. [Jul 2022, p.46]
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Jun 17, 2022It’s a wonderfully dexterous and developed body of work that gives more of itself with each listen.
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MojoJun 16, 2022In Amber goes the whole hog. ... Frequently beautiful and occasionally offers succour. [Jul 2022, p.90]
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UncutJun 16, 2022Reflective of our era of political polarisation, the likes of “Contempt For You” can make for bruising listening experiences. Yet there’s still plenty of solace to be found in performances by Iceland’s Elin Ey and the ever-remarkable Anohni. [Jul 2022, p.26]
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Rolling StoneJul 7, 2022A bracing, at time beautiful, LP of dark art-pop abstraction. [Jul - Aug 2022, p.120]
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Jun 16, 2022Ultimately In Amber demonstrates an unexpected mastery of dance floor inflected, gothic-folk tinged, post punk, driven by raw feeling and humanity. With topics as grave, the fact these songs only occasionally teeter on the hazardous borderline where meaning meets portentention is a mark of the sheer skill of those involved.
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Jun 16, 2022On In Amber, Butler may have found a handful more peaks and his share of valleys, but few can emerge from the shadow of what came before.
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Jun 22, 2022Some of it drags (looking at you, “You’ve Won This War”), and the lyrics, melodies, and sounds don’t always land. At times you can practically feel him straining for it all to Mean Something, but Butler remains a powerful and important voice in music, even when a particular album doesn’t fully succeed.
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Jun 21, 2022It’s also overly self-serious, an album begging to be considered above its pretentions and to be analyzed as art. For the most part, it works. It works as a piece of baroque chamber art and it works like a flip side to Hercules & Love Affair, a testament to the pair’s virtuosity. Still, it’s frustrating that with so many talented musicians collaborating on this project, it can feel like a missed opportunity.
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Jun 17, 2022The main issue that dogs this album is weak composition – few of the ideas are outright bad, but they don’t earn their runtime.
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Jun 16, 2022If creating something uncomfortable was what Butler was hoping to achieve with In Amber, then it certainly succeeds in its mission. Unfortunately, though, it doesn’t achieve much else.