With their previous albums — Noise Won’t Stop and One With the Sun — Pete Cafarella and Nate Smith were dipping their toes into the infectious waters of 80s dance pop while also implementing elements of in-your-faceness reminiscent of The Strokes and The Ting Tings. They decided they didn’t really like guitars early on, replaced them with synthesizers and layered vocal track on top of vocal track until Cafarella’s melodies and yelps were hardly distinguishable. Their lyrics were based on oh-so-heavy subjects like dropping phones and kick drums, but that worked for them.

Shy Child?’s latest release, Liquid Love, leaves the more in-your-face moments on the shore and fully immerses itself in the 80s groove fest. From the opening title track, “Liquid Love,” to slow jam closer “Dark Destiny,” the synth, Smith’s drum beats and Cafarella’s keyboard-induced chords never let up. It sort of sounds like what would happen if Depeche Mode and Passion Pit had a musical love child and let Geddy Lee write its lyrics.

I had to add that last bit because I feel like, this time around, the duo actually tried too hard to write lyrics that seem more meaningful. Dance music is supposed to be carefree and, in some ways, effortless. That’s how these guys got away with writing about dropping phones in 2008. Cafarella sings about how “pleasure and pain sometimes feel the same” on the new album’s opener and when you listen to the chorus on track five, “The Beatles,” which begins with “If it feels so right how could anybody call it wrong?” the only thing that feels wrong are those God-awful lyrics.

Overall, I’m happy to hear an album that gets back to some good ole electronic roots, I just miss the more experimental aspects of Noise Won’t Stop and One With the Sun that made them one-of-a-kind. And the silly lyrics. Those were better too. Nevertheless, I’m sure I’ll find myself at a hipster bar dancing to tracks from this album, PBR in hand, very soon and I’ll love every minute of it.