A few months ago, I caught myself hoping that French retro-pop group Phoenix would put out at least 10 albums over the length of their career. That way, given their previous rate of 1.2 memorable songs per album, I could purchase a decent greatest hits package some time in the 2020s. It’d be a long wait, sure, but my CD storage space is now at a premium and I have no room for mediocre albums with a few good tracks.

So you’ll understand my mixed feelings on hearing “Consolation Prizes” from their new album It’s Never Been Like That. In the credit column, we have the fact that it sounds like “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go,” “Close to Me,” and The Strokes first album all rolled into one delicious confection. In the debits, we have the instinctual reaction that I’d just heard this year’s quota of good Phoenix songs and I’d have to be content with playing it on repeat.

Was I wrong? Sure I was. Luckily.

It’s Never Been Like That has the elusive factor missing from previous albums—consistency. It’s a half-hour vacuum-pack of pop goodness—eleven tracks that combine the band’s well-documented love of mid-80s FM radio pop with a surprisingly muscular rock edge. These boys have been putting in some quality bench time since 2004’s Alphabetical.

“Long Distance Call” presents frontman Thomas Mars in full lovesick mode during the verses, including his delightful vocal shrugs of resignation. He even manages the switch to angsty rocker for the refrain that gives the album its title. Unlike the synthesized efforts of yesteryear, this one is instead driven by chiming guitars. Nothing so coarse as distortion, obviously, but Phoenix demonstrate for the first time that they acknowledge their beloved 80s pop’s debt to the original new wave.

Anthemic closer “Second to None” actually brings the rock even more. Maybe not rock in the hairy-chested sense, but more in the sense that mid-90s Matthew Sweet or latter-day Superchunk “rocked.” For a band that has always been remarkable for its Kraftwerk-like levels of control and discipline, it’s strange to hear Phoenix channelling the shambolic spirit of American college rock, but here we are.

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