For those of us with the inclination, there’s a point where the immersion of a video game and its addictive nature can control pretty much every facet of your imagination (and life in general). There is probably no other depiction of that same sensation in its most ridiculous sense than Simon Pegg’s convulsive reactions to Resident Evil 2 in Spaced – real life merges into pixelated blurs of imagery and sound leaving a disorientated mass of human flesh to fight off the demons. Sounds horrible, but in truth it’s a big reason as to why these things are played in the first place.

This is obviously an experience that Joel Ford and Daniel Lopatin have had their fair exposure to in the past, albeit probably more in the seizure-inducing 16-bit classics that absorbed their own youths and their accompanying ingenious soundtracks. Their first musical foray as a duo under the moniker of ‘Games’ emerged at during the solstice of last year and pretty much firmed that personality up – it straddled a hazy middle ground of bedroom-worked, woozy reverb efforts and club battering electro warmth. But with their debut full-length under their new guise in the form of ‘Channel Pressure’, it seems the gloves have come off in their attempts to sonically recreate that imaginary world they hold so dear.

Setting itself up as a Tron-like opus with their conceptual hero Joey Rogers being taken into a fabricated world dominated by a mechanised Music Industry (something like the BPI on Salvia or EmoGame meets Wizard of Oz, if you will) sets the tone before the play button is even hit. But once it has been, the journey is as adventurous as the mentality and texture they have embedded into the story alone. From its opening dream like mesh of radio wave distortion and samples into its feet-planting washes of scanner like synthesisers and robotic narrative, the duo set out their stall in a somewhat unexpectedly subtle tone. But once ‘Emergency Room’ and it’s Axel F baiting bassline emerge from the ether, their true intent and character comes to life – from here on in, ‘Joey’s Journey’ takes a far more adventurous and often disorientating path.

With brief, dystopian interludes of noise intermittently displaying their own fortes of imagery, it’s clear where the album’s heart lies with intentionally more fleshed out and stronger, beat-led tracks. ‘Too Much Midi (Please Forgive Me)’ encapsulates and purifies almost every essence of the duos hedonistic noise-mongering into a brilliant 4 minute ode to pop vocals, gloriously wanton guitar solos and hip thrusting basslines, all driven by a breathlessly relentless four to the floor slam. Album standout ‘Joey Rogers’ stands as another perfect example of the duo’s pop orientated strengths, building from it’s beautifully addictive hark of the lead character’s name before breaking down under a digital ocean of soulful vocals, diamond-encrusted lead synth lines and yet more guitar shreds – shreds that can, on their day, challenge even Daft Punk’s similarly masterful moments on their iconic Discovery album.

Accompanying these well drawn out moments with the fleeting drones and swimmable mire of each chapter’s softer interlude (‘Rock Center Paranoia’, ‘Green Fields’) gives that same sensation of sanctuary from the game’s beasts, it’s tribulations. They are the points where the game is saved – blissfully weighted and, more often than not, perfectly timed. They only go to emphasise just how pumped with adrenaline this world has left you. By the time the final platform of ‘World of Regret’ closes it’s clear that Ford and Lopatin feel their mission not so much complete as built for others to make their way around with joyous abandon.

But despite their applause-worthy ambition being here for all to see, not to mention their continually affable and boyish nature being on display alongside, not all of their world is as emphatic and potent as it’s persistently rainbow-soaked continents. Efforts at slower, more romantic R’n’B efforts like ‘Break Inside’ jar against the pace of everything that has preceded it, proving and unwelcome checkpoint in the albums otherwise flawless flow. Even tracks like ‘The Voices’ and ‘Surrender’, despite their still obvious charms, have almost too close a stadium reality to them that was more an affliction to the modernised world Ford and Lopatin created, and even the epoch in which they lived. Maybe they are intended as part of a narrative arc, maybe they could be enemies on Joey Rogers past. But, when boiled down to the simple point of whether they stand up musically against the rest, they don’t hold that level of character or impetus as the rest.

Therein lies Ford and Lopatins unfortunate, if not impossible, conundrum. Their ambition and undoubted talent for pop hooks and esoteric electronic wizardry couldn’t really have been put together in a better format than Channel Pressure. But its sequel and beyond are sure to see their comic, childish minds grow out of their all-too-colourful surroundings soon enough to create a universe conqueror that everyone will understand the addiction of.