The hot squirt of adrenaline when you lock eyes with someone you fancy is one fuel for this superbly put-together pop record, where New Yorker Polachek – once of hipster duo Chairlift – gasps, yelps and croons her way through a discombobulating new romance. One song, a new wave masterpiece, is called So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings and climaxes before its final chorus with a sharp, even terrified intake of breath; the title track’s title word is sung offbeat to give that sense of lust catching you off guard, like a southpaw’s sudden hook. There’s even a song called Hit Me Where It Hurts, built around a gorgeous repeated refrain, the kind of one Post Malone tops worldwide streaming charts with.

But at another point the certainty of a relationship’s failure “hit me like a brick” – this is also a break-up album, written in the wake of Polachek’s divorce. You get the feeling there weren’t hurled dinner plates or screamed recriminations. Instead, she writes about love that just fizzles out in a thin hail of circumstance. New Normal is a dancehall ballad that plays out in a series of stress dreams – injured robins, skidding SUVs – while I Give Up, a muted R&B track, sees Polachek succumb to an “apathetic kind of self defeat”; on Caroline Shut Up, she lets you right inside her lustful waltz-time neuroses.

It’s not all so nuanced and well-written, though. Hey Big Eyes is tepid trip-hop, and Ocean of Tears is as gratingly overwrought as its title, even if Polachek’s vocal control is as exceptional here as it is throughout. But overall, Pang is a vivid and melodious portrait of a restless heart.