Manchester’s Delphic are too young to remember the bold, clean spaces of the Haçienda or to have seen the groups associated with the club. Yet those ghosts — New Order, A Certain Ratio et al — are joyously summoned on this modernisation of the pre-Madchester sound. The Ecstasy rush of Counterpoint shines alongside songs that pitch James Cook’s vocals amid his colleagues’ electronica. This creates the best of both worlds; youthful hunger underwritten by an assurance and craft almost unheard of in debut albums.
(Chimeric/Polydor; out now)