Long Island artcore kids Glassjaw made a splash two years ago with their spastic debut album, Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Silence (Roadrunner). It was produced by metal mastermind Ross Robinson, and he’s back on their second disc, but the band have upgraded both their record label and their rhythm section. The results are alternately prettier and more savage, solidifying the group’s position at the cutting edge of both punk and metal.

The first single, "Cosmopolitan Bloodloss," is prime crossover material, wedging a cool pop-metal chorus between a joyous series of noise-guitar outbursts and thunderous mosh beats. The band surrender none of their intensity when they take it down a notch: "Ape Dos Mil" suggests Faith No More gone emo, and the ballad "Must’ve Run All Day" builds a quiet tension that erupts into a Radiohead stunt-guitar coda. Despite their pop leanings and their major-label cash flow, the group are unlikely candidates for stardom: the unrelenting heaviness and the twisted hooks of the leadoff track, "Tip Your Bartender," peg them as a cult act from the start, as does singer Daryl Palumbo’s neurotic warble. But bringing avant-metal to the masses is no easy task, and Glassjaw pull it off more effectively than most.