Highgrade Records and its offshoot Highgrade Digital, have played host to plenty of brilliant artists which consistently occupy the limelight in house and techno circles. Anthony Collins, Tigerskin, Sebo-K and SCSI-9 have all handed over gems to the label, yet in signing Heinrichs & Hirtenfellner’s Dark Orbit for the label’s fourth album release, label boss Tom Clark has gotten behind a sound much less imaginative.

Dark Orbit is by no means a poor effort, the production is as clean as one could expect from the Berlin school of minimalism the duo reference, yet it suffers from a lack of fresh ideas which render it little more than pleasantly bouncy dance floor fodder.

It’s also hard to justify the tracks on offer being put to album – they’re all far more suited to individual EP releases given the dancefloor focus which makes for a less than amenable start to end listen. Quite frankly, an album should by rights have some sense of flow and dare it be said, sense of journey. The last thing a wider electronic dance music world needs is a filler album, particularly with the wealth of greater material around.

If this style of stripped back tech house is personally appealing then Quantum Jump, My Gravitation and Alpha Particle will no doubt find themselves on high rotation but on the whole Dark Orbit just isn’t doing anything new with enough feeling to justify a purchase.