There’s a certain eye-of-the-storm feeling that comes with speaking to Joni Samuels: as she knits herself a new jumper in her front room, she recounts the whirlwind year she’s just had fronting ferocious two-piece Fräulein with an apparent sense of calm. ‘I think my favourite thing is just being able to express myself in front of people’, she says, ‘I used to do dance for years and I like the communication you get from that, just the same as from playing music or singing in front of people. Right now, the goal is just writing songs to play live.’ This modesty belies the raw angst that she and drummer Karsten Van Der Tol exude on stage, and with her angular riffs and visceral, screaming vocals – ‘because when else do you get to scream?’ – the Joni seen on stage is a world apart from the one speaking today. ‘I’ve struggled with low self-esteem since I was a teenager’, she says, ‘and these songs were written so I could try to find some confidence. I don’t think I’ve found it yet but these songs helped me through that time.’

Joni is speaking of songs from upcoming EP ‘Pedestal’, their second after last year’s ‘A Small Taste’. It’s an evolution of the band’s sound, maintaining their distinctive grunge aggression whilst introducing a more nuanced layer of songwriting. ‘For the first EP, there’s no real theme, but for ‘Pedestal’ I wanted everything to be super cohesive, so it actually tells a story throughout’, she says. ‘It’s mostly a document of the past year of us starting to be like a proper band, with a lot of people looking at us.’ When the pair met by chance at a mutual friend’s house jam session, they quickly bonded over a shared love of music on the outside – PJ Harvey, Big Thief and The White Stripes all looming large in their shared influences – and after the release of first EP ‘A Small Taste’, they found themselves earning a reputation for that same outsider spirit. Now relocated from Bristol to London, Fräulein have had a blistering year, signing to Submarine Cat Records and culminating in a sold-out headline tour and a string of shows supporting The Mysterines. ‘We didn’t think we’d ever get to tour’, Joni laughs. But with the added attention came some self-doubt that emerged in the songwriting. ‘When we were writing, one of the key things that kept coming up in our songs was holding yourself to a super high standard, while putting other people on a pedestal. We just kept coming back to that word, it encapsulates the whole vibe of the EP.’ Ironically, these new songs display a more secure, adventurous Fräulein despite their subject matter. Take latest single Big Cool, a no-holds-barred punk racket that shows the band at their most untethered. ‘That song was written as a ‘fuck you’, about trying to pretend you’re confident by looking at other people and acting like them as a way to feeling confident.’ In stark contrast to this attitude is ‘Brand New’, the closing track of ‘Pedestal’ and one of the band’s most melodic and subtle songs to date. ‘It’s about opening your eyes and focussing on the things around you, and it’s a more honest portrait of where I was at that time. It’s probably my favourite song, I’m so proud of it. If you look at the progression from ‘A Small Taste’ to now I’m starting to find my voice more which is super exciting.’

It’s hard not to be inspired by Fräulein, whose DIY determination is starting to pay dividends. And with all signs showing the band is about to break, they’re still looking onwards and upwards. ‘When we supported The Mysterines’, says Joni, ‘we saw how a band who had been grafting for years were selling out all these venues, and the feedback we got at those shows was super validating, because we’ve been working at it super hard for a couple of years now. We want to build that live reputation too. That’s the goal – to play shows forever.’