“Lonely Road” is a snapshot of a band in the course of maturation. After the commercial success of their previous album, “Don’t You Fake It,” Red Jumpsuit Apparatus (RJA) was pigeonholed into the familiar pop-punk category. This time around, RJA has gone back into the studio and halfway reinvented themselves.

The first track, “You Better Pray” is almost unrecognizable. With more feedback, blistering guitar licks and an open-throated howl that brings out the best in Ronnie Winter’s vocals, they seem to be channeling equal parts Avenged Sevenfold and Guns N’ Roses. This venture into another genre is incredibly rewarding and exciting for listeners—the band tackles metalcore and post-hardcore and sounds like they’ve really hit their stride.

However, this new sound doesn’t last. By the next track, the band is back to tired pop-punk sounds and sentiments. RJA describes their album the best themselves. On “Pen and Paper,” Winter laments, “This whole routine is getting old/ and so am I/ and so are you/ my reputation lets me know/ I can do whatever I want to.” “Lonely Road” is split pretty evenly between patches of their more innovative moments and some uninspired tracks.

Ironically, only one song sounds like classic Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. “Senioritis” brings back the soaring vocals and more treble-infused power chords we’ve come to expect from them. Of the three acoustic tracks on the record, two are excellent. “Represent” and the title track show off just how far RJA has come musically from their early days. The third, “Godspeed,” is an unfortunate turn of My Chemical Romance’s “Black Parade”-style theatrics. All things considered, “Lonely Road” is a solid album, but one that could do with a few more years’ perspective.