Top 20 electronic music albums of 2022: Working Men’s Club – Fear Fear

This is the last Top 20 album in my mega music countdown. The next blog post will be a Top 10 album. Think of this as a Top of the Pops countdown but much slower and with fewer numbers. Here comes Todmorden's finest...

See the full countdown here.

Working Men’s Club: Fear Fear (Heavenly)

I’m proud to say that earlier this year, Working Men’s Club hellraising frontman Syd Minsky-Sargeant and I went to an artisan bakery together. You can read all about it in (of course) Electronic Sound. The band impressed with their debut album, and this seething, lava-spitting follow-up doesn’t disappoint.

Bright shiny synth lines lead 80s-inflected pop, the machines conjuring memories of Depeche Mode or Japan. And yet it’s all soaked in a dour Yorkshire attitude, despite their proximity to delicious baked goods. The lyrics are as depressed as heck, all death and despair. The best misery lyric? “Why would thy care, thou must just be bluffing.” Mark E Smith, eat your heart out. 

From another website: The chaotic palette does justice to the devastation and confusion faced in recent years. Working Men’s Club certainly wear the trauma well. (NME)

This is part of a series of the Best Electronic Music Albums of 2022. Read it all here.