"We just want to take it to the next level"

Methyl Ethel's Jake Webb doesn't like to sit still.

He began writing the last record, Everything Is Forgotten — featuring 'Ubu', which came in at number four in this year's Hottest 100 — pretty much straight after the first one, Oh Inhuman Spectacle.

Today, he's sharing a new track, 'Scream Whole', the first from what will be the third Methyl Ethel record, due out early next year.

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"Now that I have wrapped this one, getting recording straight away or continuing writing is quite necessary," Webb, 30, says on the phone from Perth.

To clarify: he's talking about starting work on the next one, i.e. the one after the one that hasn't yet been released or even announced.

"It helps with the album anxiety, because it's like, 'that's not it'. I've got a few demos that I can be really excited about."

Thom Stewart, who plays bass and keys, admires his bandmate for the way he treats songwriting like a "blue-collar" job.

"One of his methods has always been to look to the future rather than focus on the past."

Jake works quickly, and largely on his own. He says he doesn't go out that much.

"He's one of those people that go into the room and sit down and do it," says Amber Fresh, who plays in Rabbit Island and played in an early incarnation of Methyl Ethel. "They just get to work."

Making 'Scream Whole', and the rest of the new album (the title of which Jake isn't allowed to reveal just yet), was a return to Methyl Ethel as a largely solo affair, after having gotten some production help from James Ford (Artic Monkeys, Foals) on the last one.

"Jake is very insular in the way he works," Thom says.

"He's got his process and it works for him."

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Is he suited to working alone?

"Unfortunately, yes," Jake says.

"If I am working with people, I tend to bring their style in a little more, so that by the end of it, I think I should have really done it myself. I am a bit of a control freak."

But change is also good, he says, so he can see himself collaborating more widely in the future. While Methyl Ethel is his baby, other members do offer notes on new material, and in the live setting each member brings something of their own to the songs.

You probably know this, but it's worth repeating: Jake is not a melodically challenged songwriter. 'Scream Whole' again shows off his ability to throw together different progressions, letting them intertwine and bounce off one another. The result is inventive, but accessible. It's complex but it still sticks in your head.

He didn't intend for 'Scream Whole' to sound grand, but it has come off that way, probably because of the the stark, harpsichord-like jangle that drives it.

Unlike on earlier singles like 'Twilight Driving' and 'Rogues', you can't really hear a guitar — an instrument Jake calls a "throughline" of Methyl Ethel as a project but one he has tried to steer away from, now writing mostly on the piano.

"There is that cliche of 'guitar rock band ditches guitars, gets synthesizers'," he says.

"I think I just want to use all of the instruments that are available, and that I can play, but just use them in ways that are more exciting to me."

The band are aiming to bring that grandiosity to the stage for their upcoming single launch shows, having expanded only this year to playing as a five-piece.

"We just want to take it to the next level," Thom says.

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I asked what Jake is exploring on this new song.

Methyl Ethel lyrics are rarely straightforward, and this one's no different:

I can feel it in the rest of me

Part of what appears to be

More than just the taste on my tongue

His first response to my question was, essentially, what does it mean to you? That sums up his approach to songwriting.

"It's sort of." He stops and starts again. "It's all." And again. "I get myself tongue tied because all I have to say about the song is in the song," he says.

Amber Fresh says Jake has always been private about what his songs reference. "He's hard to pin down," she says.

Jake says he is not trying to be surreal or abstract, but at the same time it's difficult to explain his intentions through words. He doesn't want to influence how people receive his work.

"I find it difficult to find the words without painting the songs, or at least framing them in a permanent way," he says.

"So, if I were to say that this [particular thing] is what I am talking about, I think it pins it too specifically."

Methyl Ethel single launch dates: