Dan Werb probably thought he had heard it all -- from contemporaries like Junior Boys and Chromeo to past party faves like Tubeway Army and OMD.

But amid a light-hearted 20-minute conversation about the synth-happy music of Woodhands, the Toronto-based duo comprised of Werb and percussionist Paul Banwatt, the keyboardist seems particularly amused by this writer's description of Dancer.

The lead track on Heart Attack, a dance floor-filling collection of synth-pop standouts, Dancer pits a restrained Maylee Todd vocal against hysterical, gruff-voiced interjections from Werb.

"Wow!" Werb says with a laugh, "no one has ever compared Dancer to Aqua before!

"But," he continues, "I think it's pretty apt. You know where our allegiances lie, obviously. This isn't a Woodhands album; this is an Aqua album."

Well, not exactly. For one thing, Todd, a one-time regular at the duo's live shows, contributes to only the one song, singer-songwriter Laura Barrett to another -- vocals on the remainder of Heart Attack's tracks are handled by Werb and Banwatt. For another, for all the album's dance-floor magnetism, confessional tales such as Straighten the Curtain offer a tad more depth than did Barbie Girl.

Moreover, while Werb acknowledges the influence of past synth-driven projects on Woodhands' engaging sound, he stresses the determination of the duo to explore new musical territory.

"We didn't consciously go out there and be like, 'Let's copy this,' " he says. "I think if we like a beat, we'll often steal it ... and I realize those are two contradictory statements. But there never was a time when we were like, 'Okay, we have to sound like this. Let's listen to every band that sounds like this and model ourselves after that.' We take elements from so many genres of music to make ours.

"But I guess because we use a lot of synths from the '80s, naturally it would make sense to think we're copying that sound, because the actual sound of the instrumentation is similar. And if people think of us in that way, that's totally fine.

"What we're striving for is an immediate, emotional, high-energy, almost cathartic experience -- live and on record. However that's expressed or however people want to frame it, that's fine. As long as we get that reaction."

And in that regard, so far so good. Woodhands' Heart Attack has already shocked many a central nervous system since its release earlier this month. And the Woodhands live show, notable for Werb and Banwatt's no-laptops/no-sampling policy, has become legendary.

"The music that we make and the way that we make it is kind of built out of necessity," Werb says of the duo's lauded approach to live performance. "I'm a keyboard player, so it's easier for me to play music than it is for me to create samples and sequence all that stuff. I like to be busy on stage; I like to be doing a million things.

"Doing it this way is also more interesting because we could not play identical shows, even if we wanted to. It's out of our control, in that sense. The sound is always shifting. There are always different synth patches; we're always going to play a little differently.

"We like that. We think it keeps it fresh. Especially when you're touring, you're playing every night and you want to make sure that every night is something special."

Even if that means sacrificing some of that Aqua element. Or not.

"Paul has now taken over singing some of the parts Maylee used to sing onstage," Werb reports. "And, once, somebody heard it and thought we had used prerecorded female vocals. Paul just kind of shook his head at me. But he sounds great. He should be proud."