Album Review: Client Liaison - Diplomatic Immunity

When you're hurtling towards the ground at a million miles an hour for entertainment, it's important to know when to pull up. Not only do you avoid spectacular tragedy, but you also establish your daredevil bona fides with those on the ground, and engender admiration and respect. So too, with homage.

Client Liaison's debut long-player, Diplomatic Immunity, continues full tilt their relentless lampooning of the (in)glorious excess of the 1980s. They attack the gaudy (white) escapades of Australia's elite, using the language and aesthetics of an Americanised archetype. They hurtle at the ground at a million miles an hour dressed in power suits, and they pull up just in time. Just.

One thing you need when exploring the '80s is good production value and Diplomatic Immunity has that in spades. Clean, reverbed vocals rise up over pillowy clouds of vaporwave synth and a rich, tropical rhythm section propels everything. Strong songwriting is on display here as well, although few tracks get close to eclipsing the artists they clearly admire. Off White Limousine sounds like a Purple Rain B-side for example, and Where Do We Belong owes an awful lot to Thriller.

Thematically, it's thin but fun. Opening track, Canberra Won't Be Calling Tonight, actually has something on its mind, but songs like A Foreign Affair (with Tina Arena!) and Hotel Stay are solely concerned with satirising lifestyle. In the end, the fidelity to that lifestyle in terms of their sound and presentation is so complete that you start to wonder, 'Have they drunk their own Kool-Aid?'