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Mika has a lot to answer for. Come to think of it, so do The Bee Gees. In 1977 Saturday Night Fever brought New York disco to the mainstream, sashaying across rubix-cube dancefloors and hip shaking underneath glittering mirror-balls. The party was short-lived and in 1979 came the nail in the sequinned coffin: the day that disco died. In succeeding years, disco became a flared caricature, confined to happy hour dancefloors at sticky-carpet local club nights. Like its sibling, pop music, disco became a dirty word.

Enter Hercules And Love Affair with the album that is set to redefine dance music in 2008; a knowing yet intelligent homage to the roots of house. You may have heard these shimmering melodies, swooning vocals and platform-tapping rhythms before, but that's not the point. This isn't The Scissor Sisters. This certainly isn't Mika. Nor is it an attempt to mimic the past era. Instead, Hercules And Love Affair lovingly recreates a tradition long-awaiting resurrection; and does it with an orgasmic grin on its face from start to finish. This is the world of Donna Summers and Patti LaBelle transplanted to the confines of The Paradise Garage.

DFA ignited the electro-rock trend with LCD Soundsystem and are set to do the same for disco-house with this album, recorded at their West Village Plantain Studios. Each track is a snapshot of the smouldering era when disco found a new life in the four-four beats of house. The plaintive You Belong is a heartfelt lament from a gay club on the bad side of town, while the glorious Athene provides an almost physical 5AM rush. This is Herculean art-disco for the 21^st century (check out the glittering Hercules Theme) with a just a hint of quiet knowledge of its own tradition (This Is My Love).

Perhaps the best thing about the album is the devastating use of Antony Hegarty (of Antony And The Johnsons fame) whose vocal turns are instant classics. The sparkling Blind is a tour-de-force; a Baby Wants To Ride for the 21st century (fittingly, it's been remixed by Frankie Knuckles into a euphoric shot of audio adrenaline). As it spirals and unravels with Antony's unmistakable, soul-searching tones set against sizzling brass embellishments it cannot fail to drag your hips onto the dance floor.

From beginning to end the album captures that brass-fuelled flicker before mass-production and mainstream popularity led to the disco backlash in 1979 which saw the Chicago masses throwing records into a bonfire. Homophobia and over-commercialisation looked like the end of the funk-fed phenomenon - until house music was born to raise it from the ashes. Hercules And Love Affair celebrates and reclaims that era, while looking firmly to the future. Dance music for body and soul, this is the most revelatory - and very likely the most rewarding record of 2008.