Working Men’s Club

Yorkshire outfit Working Men's Club are known for their propulsive, synth-heavy, and abrasively entertaining brand of punky dance-rock. Galvanized by leader Sydney Minsky-Sargeant's love of dance music and techno, the group garnered widespread buzz with their full-length debut, 2020's Working Men's Club. Following the companion singles "X" and "Y," they returned with an even more evocative, '80s-style post-punk-influenced sophomore album, 2022's Fear Fear. Hailing from Todmorden in West Yorkshire, England, the band was formed in mid-2018 by vocalist/guitarist Sydney Minsky-Sargeant, guitarist Giulia Bonometti, and drummer Jake Bogacki when they were still in their late teens. The trio built a following thanks to their electric live shows and Minsky-Sargeant's skills as a cheekily opinionated frontperson. After releasing a single heavily influenced by guitar-based post-punk, 2019's "Bad Blood," Working Men's Club signed to Heavenly Records. Around this time, Minsky-Sargeant's desire to switch away from making guitar music in favor of a more electronic sound alienated the rest of the band. The conflict came to a head less than a week before a concert in London; Bonometti left the group to devote time to her Juila Bardo project and Bogacki just left. Recently added bassist Liam Ogburn stayed on, and the duo were joined for the concert by multi-instrumentalists Mairead O'Connor of Moonlandingz and Rob Graham of Drenge, both of whom Minsky-Sargeant had met at the Sheffield studio of producer Ross Orton. This lineup stayed together, and with Orton in the producer's chair, recorded Working Men's Club's first album, capturing a sound that was equal parts insistent dance music and confrontational punk. The first single released from the sessions, "Teeth," appeared in August 2019 and served notice that the group's sound had undergone a major overhaul. Their self-titled debut long-player was due to be released in June 2020, but the band delayed it and instead released "Megamix," a 21-minute continuous remix of the album done remotely by Minsky-Sargeant and Orton. Working Men's Club the album proper was finally issued in October 2020. Two non-album tracks, the punky "X" and the more electronic-leaning "Y," arrived in May 2021. They worked to tide fans over until the band returned in July 2022 with their sophomore full-length, Fear Fear. Once again produced by Orton, the album found the group further embracing an atmospheric blend of synth-heavy, '80s-style post-punk and dance music. ~ Tim Sendra