This third album from Columbia Mills (Ste Ward, Fiachra Treacy and Uisneagh Treacy) was written and recorded during the pandemic, leaning in to an uptempo vision, with future dancing firmly in focus. The record – self-produced – is a confident statement of a band firmly in their flow. It is a record preoccupied with a sense of injustice about the socio-economic climate, personal crises and inequalities stretched across the country. Addiction has a touch of late New Order running through it, and Nevada is glitchy electropop with interesting, elegant vocals, somehow managing to sound both haughty and inviting.

Title song Heart of a Nation details a city and country in disarray, amid nice guitar lines underpinned by a squelchy kind of soundscape. House Voice and its deep basslines offset Momentum’s funk elements, and Imposter Syndrome is a pleasingly jangly jaunt. Feet Don’t Fail Me Now is an album highlight – a kind of drawl-ballad, its pared-back nature draws out Fiachra Treacy’s vocal well. It is almost a distant twin of the faded, glassy piano world of Fake Life and The Day Has Won, with its menacing drums amid melodic guitars – it is a song about finding escape amid trauma, which in a way is a distilled statement of the whole record.