It may have taken six years for Young Liars to issue its first full-length, Tidal Wave, but late last month the group finally sent the album crashing into stores. It’s not like the band has been coasting throughout its career, though, having issued the Homesick Future EP independently back in 2011, re-releasing the set the next year via Nettwerk. That said, the act cops to having taken an unduly long time to develop its latest product.

“We’re pretty much studio hermits, we like staying in our space and making weird noises,” keyboardist Wesley Nickel tells the Georgia Straight over coffees at a JJ Bean, alongside guitarist-vocalist Jordan Raine. Though the quartet—which also features bassist Tyler Badali and drummer Andrew Beck—is starting to plot out a series of short out-of-town trips to help promote the 12-song set of effervescent, synth-driven indie pop, Nickel notes that the band had been keeping the songs under wraps from audiences as it gauged the danceability of it all.

“What we found is we would write a track and it wouldn’t really, like, have enough movement to it. That was my major concern,” he explains. “There wasn’t enough rhythm.…We had to try and figure out how to add more groove.”

Despite Nickel’s doubts, it turns out that Tidal Wave isn’t short of hip-shaking sounds. Album tracks “Runaway” and “Lovely and Wild” pack in plenty of the slippery postdisco beats and Stevia-sweet melodies you’d expect from the likes of Phoenix or Miike Snow, the latter being a big influence on Young Liars’ output.

While Homesick Future also featured Nickel sprinkling Moog and vintage Prophet sounds across the arrangements, the loss of founding guitar player Angelo Ismirnioglou during recording sessions for Tidal Wave allowed Nickel even more room to explore. Ismirnioglou’s decision to focus full-time on his Supercassette project has also upped Raine’s role, with the singer tackling tropical six-string leads on tracks like “Night Window”.

Perhaps unsurprisingly for a record dubbed Tidal Wave, the album is also rife with fluid imagery. Following the sudsy and soothing opening synth swells of “An Odyssey Love”, Raine’s sea-foam-soft vocals outline time spent gazing out across the water, “looking for answers” about love and life. On the minimalist yet sensually immersive title track, a remiss Raine reminisces on relationships while combing beaches; “U-Dreams” has him toppled by the sound of a wave.

Even the album’s ambient instrumental closer, “Ocean Arms”, fits the Neptunian vibe of the album, with subsonic bass tones, phosphorescent new-age synth drones, and a percussive sonar ping playing out as if recorded 20,000 leagues beneath the surface of the Pacific.

“It came out so unbelievably aquatic,” he says of the accidental underwater bonds between Young Liars’ most recent batch of songs, though he admits that he and the rest of the group “would go biking and relax near the ocean” when they were crafting the collection.

The record isn’t always moulded around a marine theme, though. The exploits of a moon-gazing couple on “Lovely and Wild” were informed by the “purple-y skies” of an old photo Raine found. The lyrics behind the aching “Blooming Hearts”, meanwhile, were jotted into the singer’s notebook during a 2009 trip through Morocco’s Atlas Mountains.

“I guess it’s about homesickness and the interesting places your mind kind of goes when you’re gone. It’s really interesting and valuable to deprive yourself of loved ones, to see how it feels and have that longing,” Raine reveals of the song.

While Tidal Wave certainly features a few high–BPM house-pop-inspired moments, the blissed-out sonics and Raine’s ponderous wordplay aren’t exactly building the band a reputation for being party animals. Young Liars’ label has even branded the act “well-mannered rock”, a tag the members hadn’t learned about until halfway through the interview. While some would scoff at such a seemingly milquetoast description, Young Liars’ energetic live show makes up for an apparent lack of bad behaviour.

“I think we’re all fairly shy and reserved, so that could be part of the well-mannered thing,” Nickel says genially, a giant grin resting beneath his blond mustache.

“Wes is probably right in the sense that we’re not crazy rock stars that are throwing televisions out of hotel windows,” Raine adds. “We like to move around—I think our live show is a little more rough around the edges than our album. It’s kind of fun that way to have these moments where you can break out and give ’er.”

Young Liars plays the West 4th Avenue Khatsahlano Street Party this Saturday (July 12).