At their worst, Client seem like some obnoxious novelty act, the two
London-based lasses (dressed up in stewardess outfits, known only by
the names Client A and Client B) delivering an art-school concept act
created to catch that electrocash-in wave on the way to popularity. At
their best, Client seem like the best '80s-loving electro-pop love-in
since way-underrated/ underappreciated/ underexposed/ underloved/etc. New
Yorker neo-new-romantics My Favorite, using the synths of the days of
yore — even those fruity faux-presets most dare not touch — to author
awesome, joyous pop-songs that just happen to be obsessed with new-wave
tonality. The real reality lies somewhere in the middle of those
love/hate polarities, but, given that this shows Client as daring enough
to get halfway there, such a conclusion should be news in and of
itself. Where electro icons like Adult. have hemmed themselves into a
depressingly redressing stylistic corner, condemned to turning circles
turning the same backflipping trick 'til they finally run out of gas,
Client, in all their own high-concept dress-ups, have managed to avoid
veering off the trans-Europe express into the go-nowhere cul-de-sacs of
dead-girl-vox-over-cold-robotic-beats.
On their second longplayer, City, the pair follow up their debut s/t
disc of the ought-three with a set doing less of the poker-faced electro
revivalism and more of the palette-diversifying pop-song penning, their
very-English voices mixed louder, the rhythms a little more playful, the
piano preset sounding more romantic than ever, and, even, real strings
and real guest vocalists brought on board. The special guest stars are
incredibly notable for fans of English wank-rags and pop-cultural
soap-opera, because, with a highly cultivated sense of humor, Client
dial up, on back-to-back tracks, Carl Barât and Peter Doherty, estranged
main-men of The Libertines. Which, whilst it may not be quite like
having Euronymous and Count Grishnackh on the same disc in 1993 (or 2Pac
and the Notorious B.I.G. in 1996, even), is at least a charming parent-trap
set-up set up by the Client twins, who manage to reunite the feuding
rockers, if only in compact-digital form, to show how they really belong
together.
Elsewhere, the girls show plenty more cheekiness. Their thematic thrust
(so to speak) is still the same: making stark comment on consumer
culture, ruthlessly satirizing the soulless wasteland of the corporate
world, mocking the music-biz that they've bought into, and highlighting
the innate sexism existent in all the above institutions. But, whilst
it's great to hear the Clients chanting, drolly, about how music has
been almost entirely elided from corporate radio, or how the rock-biz is
fueled by the fellating of corporate rock (yes, it's their pun), the
duo are even better when they dare to get sentimental, the album's
highlights being the slow-paced, almost balladic love songs "One Day at a
Time" and "Everything Must End," where the squelchy synths, ersatz strings,
and lingering faux-piano chords have little to do with irony, and
everything to do with emotion.
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