Frankly, a year ago, Andy Cato and Tom Findlay thought they might be done. The Best Of  Groove Armada had run its course. Lovebox, the previous studio album, was a distant four years in the past. And they had been together nearly 10 years.

“It just looked like maybe this was the end,” Findlay says from his home in North London, close to Tottenham.  It’s cold but sunny. A winter’s day without the sting in the tail.

“Then we did some gigs in the UK summer including the V Festival and they turned our heads around about it all. There was still a lot of love in the air, so we thought we’d go back into the studio and give it one more go.”

The end result is Soundboy Rock which is set to hit the shelves in April or May and while containing elements of the traditional Groove Armada sound - dubby, skanky grooves and sunshine on the shoulders - it also takes the currently popular electric hard house sound and mixes it with rock. Findlay is somewhat enthusiastic about it. “I feel like it’s our best record since Vertigo,” he says. Now that’s high praise indeed. Vertigo, the duo’s sophomore set, emerged in 1999 following a year after its debut, Northern Star. That was followed in 2001 by what is probably seen as their most successful album Goodbye Country (Hello Nightclub) which included the brilliant single Superstylin’. Just over a year later and Lovebox emerged which included Armada faves such as Purple Haze (their take on the Hendrix classic), Final Shakedown, Easy, the ebullient Madder, and But I Feel Good. There’s a lot to like about that early 21st Century groove that was distinctly Groove Armada.

“Yeah, but this one has stuff I just love about it. It’s commercially accessible but very contemporary,” Tom says. “One of the vocalists is Candi Staton [the noted soul and disco singer], then we have a singer called Stoosh on Get Down, which has a dancehall vibe, and there’s a track with a guy called Jedro Nicholls that’s a bit of a classic Groove Armada dance mover. So, yeah, there’s some dubby little tracks, one with a very Clash sounding melody.” What’s encouraging is that you can tell Findlay is genuinely excited about Soundboy Rock. Listen to enough people tell you how excited  they are about a new album and you’ll soon work out who really is and isn’t. Platitudes, more often than not, sound just like that and no more. Passion sounds like something else again.

“The funny thing about us is that every time we come to a new project we say ‘right, this is the record where we get to hone our sound, narrow it down’ and we  never do because that is us. This one hangs together in the way we’ve sequenced and used intermissive bits of music so it has this flow.”

Findlay also has plenty of time for Tony Allen, former drummer with World music legend Fela Kuti, who is currently appearing with Damon Albarn (Blur), Paul Simonon (The Clash), Simon Tong (The Verve) in the very cool The Good, The Bad & The Queen. “He is just an amazing drummer,” Tom says. “He uses drum loops and gets this kind of ethnic vibe to his work. In fact, I really enjoyed the people we worked with this time. In the past we’ve worked with people like Neneh Cherry and Richie Havens - hugely talented, massively experienced people. This time, we’ve taken more risks, gone for a lot more contemporary line-up of vocalists.”

And that’s what growth is all about. Taking a few risks, seeing what comes if you do things differently. “Groove Armada has always grown organically and I like that about it,” Findlay says. “We’ve never really planed what comes next and I suspect we couldn’t. It’s all just part of that process of growing up. And things are always changing and putting different pressures and perspectives on things. For instance,  Andy moved to Barcelona a couple of years ago and that has its inherent problems. happily though, I’ve never found being Groove ARmada a musically restrictive thing. If I had then outcome would probably have been very different.

“The ‘best of’ album drew a line under things and got the monkey off our backs. And then Sony came to us and asked whether we would make a record for them, which fitted in with our rediscovering the sheer joy of making music. So we’ll see how Soundboy goes and then think about what comes next.”

For now then, the Armada has set sail, once again.