The Bravery are the latest retro-post-punk band du jour - think a dash of Duran Duran and a nip of New Order, writes Kevin Courtney, who met the cool New Yorkers backstage in Camden

OH, DEAR, the "8" button on my computer keyboard has completely worn out. How will I write about this week's hot new band if I can't make repeated reference to the decade containing that very digit?

Admittedly, the button has been over-used of late, what with all these arty, neo-new romantic, post-post-punk outfits doing the rounds, and now it's completely given up the ghost. Every time I press it, a dialogue box saying "not another one" comes flashdancing up on my screen, a dinky little Casio sound plays A-Ha's Take On Me, and a giant Pac-man glides in, chomps up my copy and completely crashes the system. It's like something out of Max Headroom - total 80s overload.

Lately, rock 'n' roll has become a rather episodic affair, like a series of The Osbournes, only with a different central character each week. Last week it was Kaiser Chiefs who got the 24-7 treatment; the week before it was Bloc Party.

Today it's The Bravery, five cool young braves from New York who sport makeup, Morrissey quiffs and synthesisers, and if that darned button wasn't broken on my keyboard I'd be describing them as an amalgam of all your favourite bands from you-know-when.

There's a dash of Duran Duran and a nip of New Order in their hit single, An Honest Mistake, with a collision of Clash, Cure, Devo and Depeche Mode in the sonic blancmange of their debut album. But there's also a sharp streak of modernism in such songs as Fearless, No Brakes and Tyrant; The Bravery come on like a bouncier Strokes or a less snobby Franz Ferdinand, with fine, singalongable tunes that remind you of when popular music used to be fun, and not just a platform for parading your neuroses or a playground for talentless teen poppets. F*** art - here's pop for pop's sake, and all the better for it.

It's still too early to say whether The Bravery are overpaid, but they're definitely oversexed and over here. Backstage at the Koko Club in London's Camden, the band is preparing to go onstage to a sold-out crowd comprising a healthy percentage of women. Tales of on-tour shenanigans and general debauchery are already trailing in The Bravery's wake - always a good thing in any rock 'n' roll book. There's certainly a sleazy Noo Yawk vibe emanating from the three band members sitting before me.

Guitarist Michael Zakarin has that perennial punk cool: tight drainpipes, high-collared coat and cheek-hugging hairstyle. Drummer Anthony Burulcich could be a Bay City Roller who has swopped the tartan for leather, and bassist Mike H aka Dirt is straight off the inner sleeve of Roxy Music's debut album, with his teddy boy ducktail and glam-rock blue eyeliner.

"Things are really good right now, just very busy, and we're real excited because our first proper single just came out," offers Zakarin, looking completely the opposite of excited.

The Bravery come with very little backstory. Singer Sam Endicott formed the band with his friend, synth player John Conway, putting an ad in a local NY publication. They found guitarist Zakarin, who recruited his friend Dirt after the original bass player dropped out. "He was worried that it would all go too well," says Burulcich.

Like many a great American band before them, The Bravery built up a following in the UK, even moving for a time to glamorous Stoke Newington. A slot on Jools Holland's show got them noticed - believe me, you couldn't miss these guys - and a four-week residency in London's Metro last November solidified their UK fanbase. But though they've been there, played that and sold a few T-shirts, they're hardly jaded veterans of the circuit.

"This is all very new to us 'cos it's the first headlining tour we've ever done," says Zakarin. "And yeah, it's been absolutely amazing. We played to a packed house last night, and they were a lot more receptive than we expected. The thing is, though, when we got over here, we were lucky in that we got some attention, y'know, people kind of latched onto us a bit."

"I got recognised at a bus stop," reveals Burulcich.

"Yeah, it was me who recognised him," says Dirt.

Not that they're complete unknowns at home, says Zakarin, just that it's easier to get around and get the word around in England's smaller, closer-knit rock scene.

"Just because you're known in New York or Boston or LA doesn't mean you're gonna be known in Illinois. People think we only started to get recognised here, but we started a residency in New York that really got us noticed, before we did the Metro. And this is what inspired the Metro idea.

"And to a lot of people here it seemed crazy, y'know, no one thought it was a good idea to play a residency, four times in a month, but we were just crazy enough to try it out."

Those critics with still-operating 8 buttons on their laptops have been very quick to box The Bravery into that synth-powered heyday somewhere between punk and grunge, and to credit British bands of the time with providing the influence and the impetus that has brought these five New Yorkers to the brink of the bigtime. And they'd be right on the button.

Zakarin grew up listening to such classic UK acts as The Jam, The Kinks and The Animals. OK, he also listened to the E Street Band, but there's little of Brooce's influence evident on such tunes as Unconditional and Hot Pursuit. The Bravery play down their Anglophilia, but you wouldn't be particularly shocked if you heard they'd visited the site of the Hacienda or put flowers on Ian Curtis's grave.

"We have a lot of respect for bands like New Order and The Cure and Depeche Mode," says Zakarin. "I mean, just going to clubs in New York, you're inevitably going to hear those great songs, but to be honest, none of us would ever be putting that stuff on our iPods.

"The fact is that they have no influence on us at all, other than instrumentation-wise. People hear we have a synthesiser player, and they think we're retro, which is totally wrong."

Later that night, in a not-at-all-retro finale, The Bravery end their Koko club set with a cover of Don't Change, an early synth-pop effort by INXS. It sounds great. They will admit, though, to copping a punk ethic from the bands of the past, and a DIY attitude that sees them eschewing the big studio production.

The Bravery don't do demos - they record their ideas straight onto laptops, refining them as they go along. The album was mostly recorded in Endicott's and Conway's apartment in New York, with Endicott producing, and finished off in their friend's studio in Brooklyn.

"It's as DIY as it gets," says Zakarin. "All the stuff you couldn't get 10 years ago is now affordable. It's just a matter of whether, one, you can take the time out to learn how to use it, and two, whether you have the creativity to use it properly. I think everyone agrees that studios are great when you go into them with a producer, but no matter what, they're gonna put their own input on it, and maybe a lot of times they might overpolish it or do too much on it.

"Although when we finally work with Quincy Jones on the third album, we'll definitely go into the biggest studio around."

The Bravery is out on March 18th. The Bravery have been added to the Oxegen line-up at Punchestown in July.