There’s no use putting Menace Beach into a box. From the very beginning, the Leeds group – fast approaching their second album, the complex and frazzled Lemon Memory – have avoided traditional tropes. Founding members Liza Violet and Ryan Needham were initially joined by backing musicians who’d come and go, like passing through revolving doors. This wasn’t a traditional band, in structure or sound. In their buzzy early days, where fuzz-stained singles hinted at something special, there was a greater sense that this could all self-destruct instead of going anywhere.

But here they are, a more conventional outfit – Violet and Needham are joined by guitarist Nick Chantler – who’ve made it to album two without a hint of collapse. “It was a case of seeing what happens,” remembers Needham, who helped put together the group’s first incarnation. At the time, it was a who’s who of Leeds’ supportive DIY scene, featuring super-producer MJ from Hookworms and Sky Larkin’s Nestor Matthews. By having a variable shape and form, Menace Beach seemed to dodge the expectation and pitfalls of being a new band, even though they were making the kind of noise capable of filling sweaty venues across the country.

“I’ve been in a couple of bands before this, we had proper management, you get so into it. But there’s a point where you’re not running it, you wonder why you’re doing it,” says Needham, who hated the idea of something fun becoming professional and competitive. “Not saying it was a ‘proper band’ was a way to avoid all of that.”

The band dodged stereotypes by having a constantly shifting group of musicians

It’s all change, this time round. Menace Beach are beginning to have the look of a ‘proper band’; ambition backing up big forward strides. On Lemon Memory, in another act of defiance, they’ve stopped bathing their songs in feedback. These aren’t soothing ballads, by any means. But noise is used like a sharp tool, applied when it’s time to turn a screw. Opening track ‘Give Blood’ is a clattering, restrained introduction, a different league to 2015 debut album Ratworld. It still contains Needham’s charming dose of paranoia (its opening to-and-fro lyric goes, ‘Why do you always sing about death? I don’t wanna sing about life!’), but it’s also a convention-dodging step in another direction. Recording in Sheffield with Ross Orton, Violet says the aim was to avoid “solid fuzz”. “A lot of these songs started with synth lines or a drum-beat on a loop,” she adds. “The process was a lot more different.”

There’s nothing ordinary about this record. Its title stems from a citrus-based curse that both Needham and Violet believed was placed upon their house. Standard stuff, then. Songs began to form in Formentera, an island just off Ibiza once reserved for hippies in the sixties. Again, not the traditional destination you’d associate with Menace Beach. The Chainsmokers, maybe. But not these guys.

The trip served a purpose. After a lengthy tour, the band found inspiration in a setting hundreds of miles from home. And they even had time for a local history lesson. “Pink Floyd lived there in the sixties. Bob Dylan lived in a little windmill, so we hired scooters and found it,” beams Needham. “You could see why they would have gone there. It had that kind of vibe, it felt pretty magical.” With a little seclusion, they began to thread together loose ideas, all a thousand miles away from the frenzied default mode of Ratworld.

A big difference here is how Violet takes centre stage. On the debut, she added “embellishments” to a record that Needham wrote on his own. This time round, she “got straight on it”, leading the charge and adding more variation to a staple sound. “I felt a lot more comfortable in the studio,” she says.

“The first album, I hadn’t been in a studio that much so I didn’t know how to get my ideas across. This time, we knew what we wanted from the beginning.” Standout track ‘Owl’ finds Violet throwing choral chants towards looped guitar patterns and ominous synths. Its moody closing section could easily be mistaken for a Portishead lost cut. And placed next to their first record, it’s the sound of a different band altogether.

Lemon Memory isn’t Menace Beach’s ultimate escape route, though. It’s not like they’re trying to ditch the fuzz-stained style of their debut. But you can easily imagine the group going further on LP3, adding more sensibility to their increasing knack for wild, deranged pop. “We’ve been talking about that,” admits Needham. “We’ve written a few bits and bobs already. I think it’ll be even more stripped out. I’m playing [this record] every day. I feel really disassociated with it. For me, it’s fine for me to really like it – I feel like it’s not mine.”