The premise is disarmingly simple. It is the second instalment in GlowDriver's ongoing survey of the love languages, and it takes as its subject Words of Affirmation: the need to hear it said, out loud, in plain English, that you are loved, wanted and needed. This is not a fashionable thing to admit. Cool, we are told, means never asking; the properly guarded heart assumes its feelings are self-evident and sulks accordingly. GlowDriver wants none of it. The song's argument, made with unembarrassed sincerity, is that wanting to be told is not neediness but a way of being valued, and that anyone who has been accused of "fishing" for reassurance deserves better than a raised eyebrow.

What makes this work, rather than curdling into a self-help pamphlet with a kick drum, is the sheer craft of the thing. At 123 beats per minute, "Tell Me" occupies that sweet, sleek middle ground between dance-pop and melodic EDM, fast enough to move you and unhurried enough to let the feeling land. The basslines drive. The synths are saturated to the point of glow, which, given the name on the sleeve, feels less like a coincidence than a mission statement. Everything is pitched at the hour between midnight and last orders, when strangers become confidants and the drinks have started saying things on your behalf.

The vocal sits at the front of the mix, exactly where it should. This is a record about a voice wanting to hear another voice, and the production has the good manners to keep the human element at the centre rather than burying it under a glittering pile of machinery. The vulnerability is audible. The arrangement never smothers it, and the anthemic lift the song promises is earned rather than merely announced. Set in the bright, open key of E major, the track has an upward tilt that feels like hope in the face of uncertainty, an optimism that survives the longing rather than pretending it isn't there.

At three minutes and eighteen seconds, it also has the decency not to outstay its welcome, a virtue so rare in modern electronic music that it deserves a small civic honour. There is no bloat, no padding, no indulgent breakdown that exists purely to let the producer admire himself. It says what it came to say, then lets you go back to the bar looking slightly more open than when you arrived.

There is, of course, a danger in any project that announces its own thematic ambitions. A series built around the love languages could easily tip into concept-album pomposity, each track a neatly labelled specimen pinned to a board. But if "Tell Me" is anything to go by, GlowDriver has the good sense to let the emotion lead and the concept follow. The idea is the doorway; the tune is the room. And what a room: warm, pulsing and lit from within, the sort of place where you can finally say the thing you've been meaning to say, or, better still, hear it said back.

Independent, radio-clean and built for both the club and the commute, "Tell Me" is the rare dance record that trusts its audience to have a heart as well as feet. It asks a small, brave question and answers it with a big, generous chorus. If the remaining chapters in this series are half as considered, GlowDriver may end up teaching a great many of us to say what we mean. Until then, I'll be playing this on repeat, and not only when I'm feeling neglected.