On their fifth studio album, recorded with Flaming Lips producer Dave Fridmann, these post-hardcore guys from New Brunswick, New Jersey, meticulously arrange their riffs and electronics — without getting overly prog-rock and ornate about it. The result is a power-chord racket a big-name metal band could admire. Unfortunately, the tunes aren't so hot, and Common Existence veers between overbearing and pretty ordinary. Singer Geoff Rickly spews high-pitched wails like a Roman candle and writes lyrics whose ponderousness is reflected in song titles like "Beyond the Visible Spectrum." Most irksome might be "You Were the Cancer," where Rickly coos earnestly about "darker crimes of common existence" and screams like a banshee who just got dumped.