MAKING music in a studio flat in Brighton sounds like a bohemian ideal, in a sense. Yet, as Jessica Weiss of local post-punk band Fear of Men found out, this living situation can have pros and cons.

“It was a strange year living in this flat, which was cold and damp and lonely,” says the singer. “In some senses I was living my dream of only doing music, and in another sense I was in this introverted cycle of thinking about what was making me feel bad and then making art out of that.”

The result was Fall Forever, Fear of Men’s dark, personal sophomore record. The jangly guitars of the group’s first album Loom have been largely replaced by distortion pedals, making for fairly bleak listening at times – the tension occasionally alleviated by Weiss’s ear for melody.

As The Guardian observed in a live review of a Fear of Men Brighton show earlier this year, Weiss’s lyrics seem to reflect “an isolating conflict between passion and terror.” Her words in the single Island back up this apparent dualism, and the general push/pull factors of love. “You tell me impossible things that break me/that shake me to my core,” she sings, before a more obvious rejection of intimacy: “I’m like an island, I don’t need to feel your arms around me.”

Weiss says that before writing Fall Forever, she had never had an inclination to write about love. “Before, I just thought it was the most cliched, boring subject to make music about. A lot of pop songs, because they are all mining the same territory, literally use the same words.

“Those feelings of despair and obsession and intimacy are also the most universal themes in a good way, though. By doing something that is very specific you can really tap into that universal idea.”

The singer, who describes herself as a “word magpie” and carries around a notebook for sudden flashes of inspiration, wrote from personal experience.

“I was just going through very intense things in my personal life that I just had to put into the songs. I’ve always been obsessed with this idea of building a world with someone. Those kinds of motifs were definitely in the first record, but now its just a bit more overt.”

The reference to 2014’s Loom is worth noting; it would be wrong to assume that Fear of Men have suddenly taken on a noir aesthetic. Weiss has been dealing in darkness in her writing ever since the formation of the band.

“I guess I’ve developed as a person but I’m as dark as I ever was, I suppose,” she says with a slight laugh.”The last time it was maybe hidden behind arrangements, but this time we wanted to strip it back a little more.”

The two albums work well together in Fear of Men’s live sets, reckons Weiss, who is currently joined by permanent members Daniel Falvey (guitar/keyboard) and Michael Miles (drums) as well as touring bassist and synth player Helen Ganya Brown.

Weiss isn’t playing guitar live on this tour, which has freed her up to install some more performative aspects into Fear of Men’s show. She doesn’t tend to overthink her stage actions, mostly because her “brain isn’t really in my head when I’m performing” – in a liberating manner. She says the band have “discovered how to enjoy playing live on this record.”

“I’m pretty bad at talking to audiences because I’m in the moment and can’t really think of things in that way. When I get in front of an audience I don’t have that level of conscious thought available.”

Despite her mixed year making Fall Forever in Brighton, the city has proven a productive setting for Fear of Men, and Weiss speaks in positive terms about the effect of the sea on one’s mental state. Having undertaken an art foundation course here, she studied at Goldsmiths College in South East London before being attracted to the South coast again.

Ultimately, Weiss is sure that that year in the cold, lonely flat was worth it.

“I’m really pleased with the things that came out of that time. There is an extra catharsis of playing live, too – shouting those words at the crowd can be really powerful.”

Patterns, Marine Parade, Brighton, Saturday, October 15, 7pm, £8.80, 01273 894777