Organic Love for Space Age Swooners : ** 1/2; ERASURE, “I Say I Say I Say”; <i> Elektra</i>

Synthetic trappings aside, Vince Clarke and Andy Bell are the last of the red-hot, un-ironic romantics. Theirs is a world full of real or promised delirium amid the dandelions, waterfalls, poppy fields and moons, a yearning lyricism so determinedly innocent it recalls late-’50s pop balladry more than the jaded techno passions of Erasure’s ‘90s contemporaries. The melodies are so sweet, the lyrics so taken with swooning archetypes, that in the context of electronic sophistication and oblique gay subtext it’s easy for outsiders to read the naif passion as camp. But, as with David Lynch, we think they’re serious.

Their first album of new material in four years is surprisingly low on the danceability meter, though “Run to the Sun,” which may or may not be a paean to a departed loved one, should score big at the clubs. Clarke is a delightful programmer, achieving a kind of musical streamline moderne as he melds pop nostalgia and even music-box riffs to the wonderfully anachronistic futurism of “space-age” synth sounds.

It’s an inherently limited enterprise, though, since Clarke’s grander themes cry out for an emotionalism that lyricist Bell tries to deliver but finally can’t in his chosen language of June/moon cliches.

New albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent).