This text-talking, Bluetooth-loving world of ours has become too damn mechanical. Like a harrowing Orwellian premonition, efficiency’s finally prevailed over the stifling frailties of human nature, reducing society to the bleak regimentation of self-serve shopping, internet banking and on-line acquaintances. The days of tangible face-to-face communication have gone; even gigs can be beamed straight to our computers so the indignity of actually speaking to someone in - OMG! - real life need not arise. The overwhelming maxim of the 21st Century seems to be: who needs people when we’ve got machines?

It’s an adage To My Boy have taken to heart.

New single 'Model' is a whirling splatter of inter-planetary bleeps and incessant zigzag synths marching furiously to a crunching industrial percussion. But for all the Kraftwerk-esque pleasantries, it’s impossible to shake the image of the Liverpool/Sheffield duo simply hitting their lap-top’s disco-beat button and looping a lazy new-wave riff over the top. What could have been a surging slice of electro-pop sloops into the colourless chasm of '80s revivalism and this metallic detachment is further endorsed by a jerking robotic vocal. It’s not quite a disaster but, in keeping with the self-serving automation of today’s world, To My Boy’s 'Model' sounds like yet another cold component of a faceless machine.