Kevin Bronson on November 10th, 2008

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In a way, the Bronx lucked out. Five years with Island Def Jam gave the L.A. punkers a two-album running start and financing to build their own recording studio — but, ultimately, their walking papers. Now, after a year on their own island, the Bronx are giving us a home run of a punk-rock album.

“The Bronx (Bronx III)” (out Tuesday) doesn’t rein in any of the band’s socio-political screeds, nor soften its body-shaking intensity. But ever so slightly, the band — now a quintet (bassist James Tweedy departed; Brad Magers and Vincent Hidalgo [see correction] came on board) — has sanded the edges of its razor-sharp riffs to reveal to great melodies and a prodigious sound that even reminds me of Jane’s Addiction in places. Matt Caughthran’s vocal cord-shredding screams aren’t quite so atonal, either. Call me wishy-washy, but I’ve always thought that’s a good thing when a band actually has a lot to say.

• ||| Download: “Knifeman”

“Matt did an incredible job — he’s a badass,” guitarist Joby J. Ford says with a chuckle. “And he recently learned how to do perfect push-ups.”

With Caughthran adding the italics and exclamation points to the Bronx’s messages, the band, working with producer Dave Shiffman (who engineered System of a Down’s “Mesmerize,” among other credits) in its new Big Game Lodge studio in Van Nuys, thrashed out its new aesthetic. “You never really map it out — you have to do what feels good at the moment,” Ford says. “The way things were structured soncially, this is the way it worked out. With [new members] Ken and Brad, we had to figure out the dynamic a little bit more.

“But overall this record definitely seems more focused. It feels good right now to be in a place where you’re excited about what you’re doing.”

Actually, in the past 18 months the Bronx seems to have been in several exciting places, besides its new studio. They have made a second new album — a mariachi record called “El Bronx” that will be released in March. They portrayed Black Flag in the Germs’ biopic “What We Do Is Secret.” They completed the entirety of the Warped Tour (technically their first complete U.S. tour). And they worked out a deal that gets their third album released via their White Drugs label (and New York imprint Original Signal Recordings, which helped launch Ingrid Michaelson, among others).

“We made our album ourselves, and we own it. We have distribution deals in the U.S., the U.K., Europe, Australia and Japan,” Ford says. “It’s not really rocket science. There’s not a massive investment on the label’s part, so it’s a situation that makes everybody happy.

“The big labels are in the business of selling records and that’s it. Those people’s necks are on the chopping block. The writing was on the wall for us because people aren’t buying records. … We’re just kinda happy to be out of it.”

As for Warped, the Bronx found it to be a much different than the extensive touring they have done in the U.K. and Europe. “America is massive,” Ford says, “but we wanted to actually finish a U.S. tour. It was a million degrees and a lot of the time we wouldn’t even go outside the bus, but we all got tans. That was hilarious.”

Correction: Hidalgo is not in the band — he produced and directed the video for “Young Bloods,” which you can find here.