On "Ready or Not," the first song on "Smoke Show," Triggers come on like XTC in full "This Is Pop" mode, complete with the stutters, and barely lets up through the record's 11 tracks of perky power-pop.

Influences such the Cars, the Hives, the Futureheads and Weezer all bubble to the surface on the debut record from this Pittsburgh band, which formed in 2005 with two members each of Monarch and The You.

"At first we kind of didn't take things too seriously," says singer-guitarist Adam Rousseau. "We had all sort of gotten out of 'bad relationships,' so to speak, with our previous bands and I, at least, was really just thinking of Triggers as something to do just for fun. I mean, I thought we played well and had some decent tunes, but it wasn't until we played our first show and got such a positive reaction from the audience and our friends that I thought, 'We might be on to something here.' "

Rousseau says the band started with a Ben Folds-kind of feel and then, "As we continued writing, I began contributing more guitar-based ideas and we started adding more synth and so forth. One thing we always try to do with our writing is to do something different and new with each song, so that we're never treading over the same ground."

In 2006, Triggers -- Rousseau, singer-keyboardist Brett Zoric, drummer Rich "Woody" Kawood and bassist Joe Kasler -- recorded an EP in Zoric's dad's basement studio. For the full-length, they used an old Monarch connection to work with producer/engineer John Hiler (Liz Phair, Smashing Pumpkins) at Mr. Small's. At first, they were going to just do a few songs with Hiler, but he encouraged them to press on with a full-length.

"I was a bit nervous when he came out that he would want to make a lot of changes or try to rewrite the songs, but it really wasn't like that at all," Rousseau says. "We spent two weeks doing pre-production every day just tightening up the arrangements and cutting the fat, so to speak, on certain parts. It was actually a great experience because we had been playing the songs a certain way so long that we couldn't really step outside of them and see that there were better ways to execute certain parts. As far as the actual sound on the record is concerned, he gave the songs a lot more punchiness than any of our previous recordings. He did a great job getting the guitar to cut through and a big thick bass sound in particular."

One of the goals, says Rousseau, was to pack that punch from start to finish, making "Smoke Show" a pure blast of smart vintage power pop.

"We always used to say we didn't want any songs in our set that would make someone look at their watch or want to go get a drink at the bar. Since recording 'Smoke Show,' though, we actually have written a couple more down-tempo tunes, which," he says with a laugh, "I guess we'll save for our 'experimental sophomore album.' "