Heartland

3 very sexy girls who will only let you surmise their looks by the album covers that shows little or none of their faces.
Integrity: check
They write much if not most of their music
talent: check
Music isnt pure candy floss-there is some sense of irony mixed in with the pop
self aware-not too removed form the real world as many pop/rock stars are
check
Can play their own instrument
self reliant with music ability check
Breaking into the booklet you see that in fact they are gorgeous-but not in a fake glossy way such as Lady Ga Ga- or Pussycat Dolls uhg-and they have a look of having real personalities and brains
integrity check
Care about or keep in contact with fans
concern with more than just $$ or ££ or euro check
Design or have designed some striking covers that suggest sex more than fully body shots-
clever, impish check
Whats not to like about this?
oh yea-great songs and that faint english accent check arghhhhh

Buy it Fercrissakes :support them
check

In 2003 Client released their first album. It was minimal electro of the best kind, and lead the listener back to the start of the eighties where this genre were dominated by bands like Human League, Depeche Mode and Soft Cell. The cover and pressrelease didn't say much about the duo except that the members were called Client A and Client B and combined with a string of photos with the girls in uniforms - often in compromising situations - and whit the faces removed or more or less blurred. Client - as the debut was called - was released on the small newly started company Toast Hawaii - owned by one of the grand old men of electropop, Andy Fletcher - better known as the guy whos on stage clapping during Depeche Mode gigs.

Very fast Client got to be a mainstream-secret. A lot of people talked about them, but only a few knew them. But those who did threw their unconditional love for the girls, their sound and their performances. It resulted in a string of famous gues tstars on the follow-up City. Martin Gore - also from Depeche Mode - sang on one track. Cocainwreck, modellover and one of the most talkes about musicians the last couple of years, Pete Doherty of the Libertines on another, and his colleague from the same band Carl Barat on the fab single Pornography. The music on City was still electro but the album seemed more together, melodies were better and especially the drummingprogramming were more interesting. The sound was generally speaking bigger and City wasn't as minimal and 80's-like as the debut was.

Because of the growing interest for the band it got more and more difficult for them for hiding their identities, and fans of the band fast found out that it consisted of Kate Holmes and Sarah Blackwood from indiedarlings Dubstar. Kate had a past in handful of small bands and were touring with one of theses, Electronic, as support for Depeche Mode. Two weeks before the start of this tour the singer quit and Kate contacted Sarah from now dissolved Dubstar, she joined, and that's how is all started.

Between City and Heartland the band got a third member. Client E - that's her name - plays the bass and are and fantastic addition to the bands sound and vision. Together the three are among the hardest working girls in the musicbusiness. When they're not gigging or dj's they look after their homepage where they interact with their fans and other interested parties. They look after their London club - Being Boiled - designs uniforms, merchandise and recordcovers.

The contact with their fans on their homepage seems very important for the girls, and it is very obvious that they like to have their fingers in everything that concerns Client. Last year they offered what every fan loves; they put out eight demos and asked for feedback for these. People answered, sad good and bad things about these - mostly the first - and Client listened. Almost every one of the eight demos ended up on Heartland and they all sound far from what we heard on the demos.

Some songs has new titles or lyrics, and they have all bigger and better sounds and stronger melodies, and it is clearly that Client on Heartland have been helped by superproducers Youth and Stephen Hague who combined have twitched knobs for big stars like Kate Bush, U2, The Verve, The Orb, Dido, Paul McCartney, New Order, Pet Shop Boys andA-Ha. These two legends have accomplished to have taken Clients early minimal synth-sound and combined it with 70's glamrock to sound like futuristic pop with nerve, attitude and a rarely heard style who really kicks the legs away under the listener.

Since their first two releases there has been a quantum leap up to Heartland. The music's bigger, has gotten more fullness, more weight, and it is a shear joy to hear how big the development has been in only a few years.

From the Adam Ant-cover Zerox Machine over the New Orderish Drive to Lights Go Out with it's fantastic Frankie Goes To Hollywood-intro Client shows, that they know their classics but certainly also knows how to build a great song. All three of the above are released as singles but Hearland has so much more to offer. The erotic 6 In The Morning Sarah sings better than ever before and the destructive but extreme beautiful Someone To Hurt makes Heartland a complete electropop record that you have to return and listen to again and again.

The girls almost forces the listener into their universe with insistent danseable and tuneful hits combined with heavy drive and British superiority. It is intelligent, very sexy and grandious pop with simple melodies and merciless beats. It is easy to hear where Client is coming from, but they are able to create their own unique sound, so there's never any doubt in who you are listening to.

If you like electronica with attitudes and an edge, and a singer who can be compared to a female Neil Tennant, then you absolutely have to buy this release. Heartland - and Client - is summed up - a huge experience that deserved to hit a big audience and should you be one of those that rarely buys records and at the same time are the type who bought Dido, Norah Jones and Katie Meluah because these three has been played to death on the radio, then you have to buy Heartland as well. Not because Client sound like any of these, but frankly because you are in need for some music in your collection which isn't boring, safe grandma-mainstream.

This is Client's third album after "Client" and "City". Although it doesn't have many 'hits' on it it is their best album to date.

After Sarah Blackwood left Dubstar, she left behind Steve Hillier's fragile, quite Erasure-like sounds in favour of an extremely stripped-down rough monotone electroclash that was at the time 'the next big thing' thanks to acts like Fischerspooner and Tiefschwarz. For those who were expecting more Dubstar-style pop songs, I'm sure quite a few were disappointed. The dark attitude that had always been a thread through Dubstar's lyrics remained intact and came to the fore. The outlook was nasty, materialistic and quite punk.

Second album "City" calmed them down a bit and even had a few sort-of pop songs on it. To me it sounded much more rounded and thought-out. The raw sounds and the attitude were still there but it was a step in the right direction.

"Heartland" is another step in the right direction. It's still gutsy electro, and chord changes are still an occasional luxury rather than the norm, but there's now a wider lyrical content, more composed singing, a bit more variety of sound.

The end result is a quality album- very listenable, very catchy, keeps your interest in repeat plays.

My only complaint would be that it is too short. I'd like to hear Client going beyond the four-minute formula and developing some more album tracks.