If you ask Gwilym Gold to nail Golden Silvers' colors to a musical mast, the London trio's frontman and songwriter will attempt to find one flamboyant enough for his band's dashing synth-pop only to give up, sighing that "this whole genre thing really does annoy me." It's hardly surprising he gives such a circumventing answer given the broad set of influences that Golden Silvers have laid claim to, or had foisted up them, from Squeeze and Dr Dre to '80s dancehall and Ian Dury. But what Gwil says about the band's overarching vision is rather more revealing.

"I really love old blues, folk and soul," he says, explaining his desire to write simple songs that mainline straight to the heart and mind like a rush of endorphins. "There's something inherent in those old songs that says they were done for the purpose of releasing part of the soul. It can still be popular and a song can still be melodic and have the same sort of structure as pop but there's a real soulful, emotional element in them."

And that's probably the best way to understand Golden Silvers' magical first album True Romance: it's a properly soulful liberation. Lovelorn, charmingly eccentric, literate, starry-eyed, earthy and glowing warm with empathy, the ten sun-dappled songs within - built from an unfussy bed of sweet three-part harmonies, keys, bass and drums - are infectious without ever nagging, clever rather than arch and completely their own. "Queen of the 21st Century", a skewed psychedelic terrace stomp, sits happily with the swaggering, Prince-ly funk of the title track, a trippy, mystical and mediaeval-sounding "The Seed" and the rinky-dink but raucously anthemic "Magic Touch", all corralled into a giddy, excitable line by a kind of futuristic doo-wop.

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