Nail Tolliday and Simon Mills, aka Bent, never did hold much truck with received wisdom. From their earliest beat-nicking ways, when they wouldn’t blink an eye at half-inching a Nana Mouskouri vocal sample, to last year’s turn as deranged doctors on their sumptuous ‘The Everlasting Blink’ album, their musical map has always directed them down the road less well travelled.

Hence the curious box of delights that is their third album, ‘Ariels’. Whereas in the past Nail and Simon were happy to act the sonic fools, indulging their strictly (non-ironic) love of thrift store beats and junk shop samples. ‘Ariels’ is the sound of Bent turning their backs on such skulduggery for real music played on real instruments by real people. A departure of sorts it might be, but boring? Never.

“We just wanted more of a challenge,” the affable and jocular Nail proclaims. “Apart from samples being very expensive, we arrived at a different game plan from in the past.”

"We wanted to move on musically,” adds Simon, he of the spiky, perma-coloured barnet. “Working with musicians became more of an inspiration. It’s not like we’ve disowned everything modern though. We still like Luke Vibert as much as Motown.”

Seeking a consistency and cohesiveness that they admit wasn’t always readily apparent on their first two albums (2000’s ‘Programmed To Love’ and ‘The Everlasting Blink’) they sought out the assistance of Nottingham’s - their hometown - like-minded musicians; songs were written instead of tracks and in places guitar chords became the starting points for their recordings.

Decamping to the sleepy environs of Lincolnshire (“It’s as flat as a fucking pancake,” reveals Nail helpfully), they took refuge in a recording studio in an old chapel. Providing impetus to the project it was there that Nail and Simon, with added band in tow, began their distinctly fresh approach.

The net result is nothing less than remarkable. Far exceeding their desire to make “an emotional album”, ‘Ariels’ has a passionate and intense fragility that is all too rare in modern electronic music. At once it is joyous, dark, beautiful and brooding - not least in part thanks to the sublime vocal talents of Steve Edwards, Sian from Kosheen, Rachel from Weekend Players and longstanding Bent cohort Katty - bringing a human heart to a genre that in its synthetic state can oft seem cold and unforgiving. Indeed first track and lead single ‘Comin’ Back’ has more ideas crammed into it than most bands achieve over the course of an album. A sprightly little gem, it hints at chilled house but can’t quite decide if it’s samba disco, all whilst being underpinned by a delectable vocal supplied by Rachel and a yearning orchestral outro.

Yet whereas Bent’s first two albums made a virtue of being all over the shop, ‘Ariels’ is steadfastly cut from a different cloth. ‘Sunday 29th’’s gentle acoustica and haunting piano is Portishead if Bristol was bathed in sunshine and ‘As You Fall’ is the closest the noughties gets to replicating the Cocteau Twins’ crepuscular ambient pop. Elsewhere the emotive and life-affirming splendour of ‘Silent Life’ brings to mind a slimmed down Polyphonic Spree, the instrumental ‘On The Lake’’s effortless cinematic grandeur fulfils every melancholy quotient and ‘Now I Must Remember’ with its hazy and horizontal half-forgotten truths gives a lie to the maxim that nostalgia isn’t what it used to be. And though plink plonk electronica, ‘80s pop and ‘70s AOR all collide on ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Over’ it still feels remarkably right. A fact that’s confirmed on the innately stunning ‘Exercise 4 and the valedictory ‘The Waters Deep’.

Essentially with its abundance of moods, textures and sunshine styles, it’s head music par excellence with no obvious contemporary parallels: a rare feat in these homogenous times, but then when the band admit to soaking up influences as diverse as Aphex Twin, Bread, David Bowie, Kate Bush and Maurice Fulton, what do you expect, Zero 7?

And with the duo having written and recorded the album as a band, transferring it to the live arena shouldn’t be a problem. In the past playing live was something of a necessity rather than a stated aim. No more though, a rapturous reception at this year’s Big Chill event in Prague confirmed that. And whilst it seems a shame that it’s only when acts play live they are afforded a higher degree of recognition, Bent have suffered in the past for their anonymity. Their music has soundtracked numerous adverts (Carlsberg, Vodaphone, Nissan, Inland Revenue, Absolut Vodka and Volkswagen Beetle) and appeared across TV on shows as disparate as ‘Six Feet Under’ and BBC gardening programmes, but such has been their fate, this hasn’t translated into the success they so obviously deserve. Strapping on the six-string and indulging those cock rocker fantasies should soon remedy that.

Bent are back.