Supported by Pounded Frank Carter & the Rattlesnakes, Pounded By The Surf

For the better part of a decade, The Bronx have played provocateurs. From their beginnings as an attack-mode hardcore band to their hardscrabble lives as road warriors to the twist of fate that led to their alter ego Mariachi El Bronx — an episode that itself was an act of defiance — the Los Angeles quintet has embraced a fierce independence.  As they prepare for the February 2013 release of their fourth rock album, one thing is for certain: The Bronx have grown up, but they haven't gone soft.

"This represents the highest evolution of the band, which is exactly how it should be be," vocalist Matt Caughthran says of the album fans inevitably will come to know as The Bronx (IV). "We're the same guys, but we would never make the same record twice. And because of everything that's happened with El Bronx, we've grown as musicians. And that's why on this record you'll hear that the songs are driving everything."

The Bronx burst on the scene in 2002 with music that recalled the heyday of L.A. punk — artillery-fire guitars and percussion punctuating anguished missives about the perils of street life and the frayed edges of society. Now the band (Caughthran, guitarists Joby J. Ford and Ken Horne, bassist Brad Magers and drummer Jorma Vik) frames its aggression in different and, yes, more sophisticated ways.