On their first album for SoCal super-indie Vagrant (and third overall), Connecticut wuss-rockers Hot Rod Circuit offer up a stellar assortment of poignant hooks not unlike the ones Jimmy Eat World have been aiming at the Top 40 all year. This is emo at its purest: book-smart, melancholy, and almost entirely about girl trouble. "The Pharmacist" starts things off in bitter post-break-up mode, washing its hands of bad love with a harmony-rich monster chorus. Singer Andrew Jackson gets sweeter as the disc goes on, pledging his slacker devotion on "At Nature’s Mercy" ("Hard not to get hooked/Hooked on you") and giddily emerging from the depths of a lovers’ spat on "Let’s Go Home." The band rock hardest on "Radiation Suit," which wards off emotional trauma with punk velocity and a punchy twin-guitar solo. Jackson is an engagingly concise lyricist, and the group’s racket benefits from a similar no-nonsense approach: they’re too lively and melodic for indie rock, too rough around the edges for pop punk. Most important, Hot Rod Circuit sound sincere about everything they do — as if they knew how cheesy it is to be an emo band looking for radio play these days, but they needed the music so bad they couldn’t help themselves. And that’s the kind of attitude that got people excited about this stuff in the first place.

(Hot Rod Circuit open for the Get Up Kids and Saves the Day next Thursday, April 18, at Lupo’s in Providence. Call 401-272-LUPO.)