Last year’s The Rotherham Sessions album was, whilst essentially a demo, sufficiently in tune with the production style of Client’s previous two albums that it made a fine stop-gap to their third album. That album, Heartland, now released on their own Loser Friendly Records label, features songs re-worked from The Rotherham Sessions, including 6 In the Morning, plus some new ones. The result is an album that casts its shiny darkness over their previous releases, because it shimmers magnificently in its own world of sleazy gothic electro-pop, breaking out of the claustrophobia of Client and City, through to a stadium sized soundscape, with deeply throbbing baselines and extroverted drums and synths. It’s almost perfect, except it never quite blisters the way it should.

The new version of 6 In The Morning turns up the kink a little more than previously, helped by the way that Sarah Blackwood’s voice is mixed more crisply, and giving the arrangement an opportunity to breathe – which in itself allows the listener to concentrate on the lyrics and how they’re sung.

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