The glory days of chart-topping electro-pop — with, at their summit, such perfect practitioners as Visage, Soft Cell, Blancmange, early Depeche Mode, Human League, OMD, Erasure and the Pet Shop Boys — have long since passed. Yet this hasn’t stopped modern exemplars of the dark art, such as Ladytron and, in America, the Postal Service, from attempting to breathe new life into the format. The latest band to negotiate the wafer-thin line between innovation and archival pastiche are this Oxford three-piece, who, on the basis of Trademark Want More, have got the balance right. They move the form forwards, but their devotion to its hallmarks — the unlikely but successful coexistence of chilly disengagement and emotional veracity; aloof vocals that recall Neil Tennant and Marc Almond; a uniform (in their case, lab coats) that echoes the music’s surface uniformity; a faith in portentous synth bass lines and drum machines — betrays the respect and scholarship of zealots. On tracks as hook-filled, deceptively detached and sonically billowing as Sine Love, Stay Professional and Square Wave Anger, Trademark arrive, fully formed, at the forefront of a still thrilling genre. This remarkable album, on the tiny but dependably great Truck label, deserves a huge audience.

Truck

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