"This is Papa Roach's rock & roll record," says singer Jacoby Shaddix, describing the band's new album, Lovehatetragedy. "We know motherfuckers wanna rock. We consciously wrote an aggressive record, and that's how we want to come -- like a one-two punch."

During a summer crowded with high-voltage rock records from the likes of Linkin Park, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Queens of the Stone Age, Papa Roach's Lovehatetragedy is expected to be a major success, on par with their multiplatinum debut, Infest. Due out June 18th, the album sculpts venomous hard rock around pop hooks but leaves the hip-hop influence of their last album behind. In fact, except for the first single, "She Loves Me Not," Shaddix hardly raps at all on the new album. "I didn't want to focus my skills on being an MC," he says, "because we're a rock band. And rapping is one-dimensional. When I'm singing, the words have more color."

The Vacaville, California, band's willingness to try new sounds was a direct result of writing on the road. "There was less head-butting," Shaddix says of the band's long writing sessions in the back of the tour bus. "We didn't limit each other at all. We put down some whacked-out weird shit."

The band went into the studio in December with producer Brendan O'Brien, who has worked with Rage Against the Machine and Pearl Jam. "Brendan ain't the kind of guy who wants to come in and flip around what you got going on," says Shaddix. "He relieved some of the tension in the band. Whereas before we would sit in the rehearsal space until somebody left, saying, 'Fuck you,' this time we gambled a lot, we laughed a lot."

In between, they found time to record seventeen songs -- thirteen of which appear on Lovehatetragedy. "Decompression Period" starts off as a slow, moody ballad and escalates to full-bore rock by the time it's over. Shaddix describes "Black Clouds" as "epic, straight rock operatic," which, in plain language, means it sounds like Papa Roach's version of a Creed song.

One of the songs Shaddix is proudest of is "M-80 (Explosive Energy Movement)," which he says was inspired by listening to a lot of legendary Detroit punk godfathers the MC5. "It's our punk-rock anthem," he says. The song was originally going to be called "Rock & Roll Keeps Me Alive." "Rock & roll is there for me anytime I want to cry on its shoulder," he says. "But it's also made me crazier than I ever was. I'm happy-go-lucky in everyday life, because I have this outlet for my dark side. This record deals with a lot of love-hate relationships -- with myself, with the band, with my lady, with the world. And music has been the best and the worst thing that's happened to me in my life."