By Jake Kennedy

Julie Campbell’s incarnation as Lonelady painted a dancefloor friendly but not altogether beautiful vision of Manchester.

With projections from around the city behind her and a sound that paid tribute its greatest bands, she and her band never once shied away from taking the tightly strung tales into darker and weirder territories.

Dressed down considerably since her last appearance in Brighton in December at Wire’s Drill festival, Campbell seemed somewhat shy throughout, but this might have been pure concentration on her part.

With the Haunt’s soundsystem pushed to its full capacity, tracks from this year’s excellent Hinterland sounded pitch perfect and as evocative as anything Manchester has produced in 20+ years.

The title track, Bunker Pop and especially Groove It Out - one of the lighter tracks of the night - pleased the crowd, and despite a ridiculously early 9.30pm finish they danced throughout.

It seemed Campbell and this project have properly fused the electronic with the acoustic, as so many bands from the north have tried and failed to do in the past.

Campbell’s non-committal stagecraft and ‘heads down’ approach to interaction only aided such comparisons.