Caitlin Harnett and The Pony Boys play around with hi-fi sound on album All Night Long

The lyrics just kept coming and the end result is All Night Long, the second album for Caitlin Harnett and The Ponyboys. It's not just a break-up album, though, it's also an existential re-examination of the soul. Harnett's soul.

"I was kind of figuring myself out, learning to love myself again," she tells Weekender.

"I've never had a proper full-time job, I've just done music, and that was prompting fears and anxieties: wondering if I'm good enough to just do music and where's it going to take me; watching people around me find success and wondering if it's ever going to happen to me; wondering what more do I have to do?

"Those were the kind of thoughts going through my head at that time."

Her lyrics aren't unnecessarily angsty or vicious or self-indulgent. They are honest, searching and raw; relatable and real. Take the opening lyrics to track three, Can't Have It All: "Make it better baby, make me stay. I don't want to fight, I just want to get it right."

This is a woman wounded but hanging on to hope.

"This track is the battle between wanting something and knowing that no matter how much you want it, it doesn't mean it's right," she says.

"I was discovering myself and who I am and what I want in life, love and all that. My relationship did end but it wasn't bad, it was a very beautiful, amicable, long-term thing and we just became friends at the end of it.

"When I was writing these songs, I wasn't really sure where they were coming from at the time, and now when I reflect I'm like 'Oh that makes a lot of sense. That's what I was feeling'.

"I express myself a lot through my songs and I write them very quickly and they just kind of come out in half an hour. It's probably just my brain's way of processing what's going on in there."

Read more: Caitlin Harnett finds her voice with The Pony Boys

Harnett's voice on All Night Long is exquisite, and you can't tell that The Pony Boys are playing some of the songs for the first time, live, during the recording of the album. Harnett ambushed them when they rocked up to the studio.

"We went in to record three or four songs that I had properly written and shown the boys, but then I had these other songs in the back of my mind that I thought I'd show them on the day, and see what happened," she says.

"So a lot of those songs, like Waiting for Something, that was the first time we'd ever played it together. I like to work under pressure."

Their first album, Late Night Essentials, was recorded in producer Joseph Ireland's lounge room. This time around he was keen to capture the band in slightly higher fidelity, but not enough to mess with the band's analogue earthiness.

"On the first album we were like 'We'll just do this as a demo and then we'll go and record it properly' but that never happened and we just decided to release the album as it was, pretty low-fi," Harnett says.

"With this one, we went to a studio but we still did everything live - all the vocals, all the guitar, bass and drums, we tracked all of that live because I wanted to keep it sounding familiar. I didn't want it to stray too far from our live shows. I hate that, I hate when I listen to a record and hear a band live and it's completely different."

Harnett and The Pony Boys have played several of the new songs live and were surprised to hear some in the audience singing along. The album was only released this week, on October 13.

Read more: Caitlin Harnett and The Pony Boys loosen the reins on a wild night out

"We've been playing a bunch of them live and we've had such a great reception. The last show we played, people were singing along to these new songs and I was like 'How do you know them already?'

"There's a lot more depth and vulnerability to the lyrics in this album and I did have someone come up to me and he was like 'Caitlin, these new songs are incredible but i just want to check that you are OK'. I was like 'I'm fine! It was just a transformation'.

"I hope that people will be able to relate to some of the conversations I'm having with myself in these songs. Learning to live with yourself because this is who you are. Work on yourself, love yourself, but also, c'mon, get your shit together!"

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