Original synth Chvrches: (from left) Ian Cook, Lauren Mayberry, Martin Doherty. Timing is everything in pop music. If you're in a half-decent synth-pop band now you've probably been noticed, such are the see-sawing fortunes of synthesiser-driven music. In the mid-1980s, testosterone-fuelled stadium rock ceded the mainstream to keyboard pop and, looking at the line-ups of today's hipster festivals, it's happening all over again. The second wave of synth-pop was started by the likes of Peaches, stoked by the Killers and Kesha, and is now surfed by a thousand bands worldwide. So how does a wannabe band cut through? When Scottish three-piece Chvrches (the "V" in their name distinguishes them from places of worship in web searches) uploaded their own version of the Games of Thrones theme song on YouTube in April that was news enough for cool-culture tastemakers such as Pitchfork and NME. Five months later the band is selling out shows and is a festival favourite worldwide. Their debut album, to be released this week, is one of the year's most anticipated. Chvrches (comprised of singer Lauren Mayberry and keyboardists Iain Cook and Martin Doherty) knew they had a couple of cracking good songs in late 2011 but, instead of fishing for approval from a fickle public, the Glaswegians checked their excitement. They kept writing for another eight months. By then, Chvrches had a string of quality singles ready (Lies, The Mother We Share, Gun, Recover), all steeped in lush and dramatic synth-driven hooks sealed by Mayberry's expressive, plaintive vocals. Chvrches make no secret of being devotees of 1980s synth-pop - they reputedly watch '80s pop videos in between recording sessions - but they claim not to be driven by nostalgia. "I like to think that people write music about the music that they love; we grew up listening to Depeche Mode, Prince - when he did his electronic thing - and Cyndi Lauper," Cook says. [But] it's not like a self-consciously retro nostalgic thing with us, I like to think we are taking elements of those sounds and bringing modern elements in, especially in the rhythm productions where we are pushing things more in a hip-hop direction. That said, Chvrches' songs do sound like homages. You can easily imagine We Sink playing during a prom scene from a 1980s teen flick in which the misunderstood hot girl finally ditches her jock boyfriend for the boy with the Flock of Seagulls haircut. Cook recognises parallels between the evolution of music and the cinema of the 1980s. Cinema in the '80s was earnest, heartfelt, [with] no irony much in the way the music was and then 30 years passed ... now [culture acknowledges that] a lot of bad things happen. People get wiser and explore deeper and darker things. Martin Doherty remembers 1980s synth-pop as "almost the musical antithesis of things like Van Halen." "Synth-driven music was a natural reaction, in many ways, to all the testosterone misogynistic music that was going on," he says. That's an amazing thing. I'm not going to start slagging all of those cock-rock bands, but it was called 'cock rock' for a reason. Like fellow Brits Alt-J, the momentum around Chvrches seems unstoppable, which raises the double-edged sword that is hype. "The internet can take a band as we were, completely unsigned, writing in private, with no masterplan, no label, no nothing," Doherty says, "and we put a demo on the internet ... and you come to people's attention at such speed you can't avoid something like hype." All three stress how hard they work on their songs, although Cook acknowledges they are "lucky" to be making the right kind of music at the right time. "We are quite militant about not being obsessed about what people are writing about us," he says. For all the bands that do make it, there's 10 that have a breakthrough song [then] start to listen to all the things written about them and they're gone just as quick. We don't want to be that band. Chvrches debut album The Bones of What You Believe is out on Friday.