The music of Asobi Seksu has always been a mix of sugar and spice. Originally calling your band Sportfuck suggests an abrasive nature and not giving two figs for popular acclaim, and debut record Citrus was built around a wall of distortion from co-leader James Hanna’s guitar. On the other hand, Hush was a much gentler affair – the cooing, clipped vocals of Yuki Chikudate and the more direct pop showing off the band’s friendlier side perfectly.

Fluorescence, Asobi Seksu’s third album, proper, out on Polyvinyl, continues the more laid-back approach, with twelve tracks of charming, buzzing pop songs. The New York City based duo – fleshed out to a quartet live – rely on those lovely shoegaze/dream pop/nu-gaze tropes of Cocteau Twins style gossamer vocals, mixed with fizzy synths, and guitars straight out of the box marked “property of Kevin Shields”.

Despite being something of a multinational outfit, there’s something that strikes me as being very British about Fluorescence, and Asobi Seksu in general. Shoegaze to me was always at its best when done by the boys and girls of Ride, Slowdive and the Cocteau Twins – to name but a few. The familiar feel is reinforced by Yuki’s vocals – at times she sounds a lot like Sophie Ellis-Bextor, which, by the way, is actually A Good Thing. This is before I even mention the classic 4AD-style album artwork courtesy of acclaimed designer Vaughan Oliver.

James Hanna said the band took a mellow approach to the recording of the album, a quote betrayed by the brisk opening salvo of ‘Coming Up’ and ‘Trails’. The first track kicks off with a martial drumbeat and surges of day-glo keyboards before being washed over with spiky guitar, and Yuki’s lovely vocals. ‘Trails’ is a song of skronky electro and power chords, with an unsettling vocal refrain of “please don’t leave me here with nothing.” There’s also a wonderful outtro, as if the band didn’t want to stop playing the infectious riff.

The playful, flirty ‘My Baby’ is next up, its sugary girl-group hooks jarring against Yuki singing “my baby doesn’t love me anymore”. It’s a song that would sit well alongside Jenny-come-lately bands like Best Coast and Dum Dum Girls.

When you write songs with titles like ‘Perfectly Crystal’ and ‘Leave the Drummer Out There’, you’d better hope they avoid being genre clichés, and thankfully they do. The former, with its none-more-shoegaze name, skips along brilliantly, the focus on Yuki’s high-pitched vocals, with some shimmering tambourine making it a dose of classic dream pop. The latter is an unexpectedly wondrous excursion into prog-pop, building on clattering drums and guitar to an over-the-top crescendo that’s completely worth the journey.

James Hanna’s guitar on ‘Sighs’ brings us back to earth with a bump from those proggy heights, it being the centre of what’s a piece of energetic pop genius, showing off the fact that Asobi Seksu know their way around experimentation and pop equally well.

The final quartet of tracks show off this mix, ranging from the experimental electro of ‘Counterglow’, and the gorgeous slow-burn of ‘Ocean’, to the fun of the Japanese sung ‘Trance Out’, and ending with the off-key, woozy ‘Pink Light’.

While it takes few risks and is never likely to move mountains, Fluorescence is a lovely record, showing that Asobi Sesku know how to craft art-pop of the finest order. File under dreamy listening.