The early releases from Todmorden’s Working Men’s Club positioned the group at an intersection between post-punk and proto-techno, as if imagining a world where Ian Curtis had stayed with us long enough to front a nascent New Order. For the band’s 2020 debut, however, 18-year-old leader Syd Minsky-Sargeant dispatched with guitars almost entirely and instead burrowed deep into his love of vintage drum machines and synthesisers. Early Human League, Daniel Miller’s The Normal, Cabaret Voltaire and yes, New Order are among the touchstones, but the key is the human element Minsky-Sargeant himself brings. By turns scathing, detached, blissed out and vulnerable, he’s the beating heart within what could have turned out to be a more coldly austere, tin man of a record.