Wet Leg’s sophomore album, moisturizer, is the sound a band that is figuring themselves out in real time. Started basically as a lark by Isle of Wight pals Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers, Wet Leg achieved success beyond any reasonable predictions. Their self-titled debut album became a mini-sensation on its way to earning the band a pair of Grammy Awards and adoring audiences who deeply willing to join them in their unleashing their longest and loudest screams. By their own accounting, the rapid rise was discombobulating, challenging them to answer a question that they previously never really conceived as coming up: Where do we go next?

For moisturizer, Wet Leg has expanded from a duo to a five-piece band. Touring members Ellis Durand (bass), Henry Holmes (drums), and Joshua Mobaraki (guitars and keyboards) are formally added to the lineup and participate fully in the songwriting process. That’s less reinvention than fortification, as lead single “catch these fists” amply demonstrates. Released months in advance of the album, it made for an ideal opening salvo, retaining the everything that distinguished the band’s earlier work — the foot-forward forcefulness, the sense of humor rich with detail, and the enviable adeptness with a pop hook — while sounding boldly new and sharply inventive. As a fitting extension of the way that single courts and defies the familiarity, the whole album has a yes-and-no quality about it. This is unmistakably Wet Leg, and yet the differences are what stands out.

The album is informed by Teasdale coming to terms with her personal escape from heteronormative expectations and falling into a gratifying romantic relationship with a non-binary partner. The trademark snark of the band’s lyrics are put to service in what can best be described as love songs. Much of the the album’s friction comes from the sassy attitude rubbing shoulders with disarming sincerity. The thumping, elastic “CPR” has Teasdale singing,, “Are you the one, my ride-or-die?/ When I’m with you, I feel alive/ Is it fun? Is this a vibe?/ Is it love?” Borrowing its name from the English television personality, “davina mccall” is a disarmingly tender love song built around the sentiment “I’m coming to get you,” a much-memed line of McCall’s from her time presenting Big Brother. Even much of the feistiness is in the service of fessing up to vulnerability, as on the track “liquidize”: “I’m not that bothered/ When you talk to those other guys/ Oh, cross my heart and hope to die/ Yeah, I just told the biggest lie.”

The band is expert in finding different permutations to their sound across the album. There’s the tight and saucy “mangetout” (“You say you’re lost at sea, call the RNLI/ You’re washed up, irrelevant and standing in my light”) and the brisk and dreamy “pokemon.” Some of their familiar murmured speak-singing shows up in “pillow talk,” coupled with big, brash guitar parts that give extra bombast to the proudly raunchy lyrics (“Every night I lick my pillow, I wish I was licking you/ Every night I fuck my pillow, I wish I was fucking you”). “11:21” is a spare, atmospheric ballad, and “u and me at home” closes the album out with a juicy pop epic.

There was no way moisturizer was going to resonate with the same joyful surprise as Wet Leg. What the new album does accomplish is bringing new shades to the Wet Leg creative picture. In its way, that’s just as satisfying.