‘њ Dens is like a scrapbook, ‘ќ Trivedi intervenes. ‘њ Yeah. With this record we had ten months or a year to write everything and do everything and it’s really a great feeling to just think ‘fuck it, just forget all this stuff, just clear it all away and make eleven songs, make them as good as you can’¦ ‘ќ Clearing away? You get the sense that the band have been aching to escape their Den for a while now.

‘њ I think when we were making it we were listening to a lot of different stuff to what we grew up on, ‘ќ Rees says of the time that’s gone into Twenty One . ‘њ We started off listening to early Pink Floyd, Emerson Lake and Palmer and loads of prog stuff as well as Peter Gabriel and Buddy Holly. In the last couple of years we’ve totally moved on from that, become much more interested in pop music. ‘њ It’s just like pure enjoyment when you listen to it, ‘ќ the guitarist continues.

‘њ It’s pure ear candy. That’s what we’ve been getting out of music recently. Just pop. Even quite obscure stuff like Strawberry Switchblade and Buggles and more kind of left-field pop records from the ’80s ‘“ things that the Human League and Heaven 17 were doing, the Sheffield stuff. Pop in any form, basically.

‘ќ The band cite Timbaland’s work on Nelly Furtado’s Loose as a more contemporary source of inspiration, though it’s the 80s-born synth and sax of ‘ Two Doors Down ‘ that is the real show-stopper. You wonder if a Dad who raised his kid on Pink Floyd and Emerson, Lake and Palmer would approve of a track that sounds like Squeeze covering Whitney Houston’s ‘ I Wanna Dance With Somebody ‘, but the band are quick to hang on to a member who still plays a major role everywhere except the live stage.