Sitting at the more accessible end of metal’s broad spectrum, ‘melodic metalcore’ acts have, since the day their heavy-yet-hooky stylings were first acknowledged under that media-contrived heading, enjoyed equal measures of commercial success and merciless ribbing from the faithful defenders of their parent genre.

Credited with recording a staple of the modern metalcore canon with their 2002 debut Suicide Notes And Butterfly Kisses, Orange County kids Atreyu are fully aware that with packed all-ages shows patronized by loyal fans eager to acquire every item in a dizzyingly extensive merchandise range, comes the patronizing dismissal from the old guard who see only hype, pop with added guitars, and boy-band looks with added tattoos.

On last year’s dazzlingly diverse Lead Sails And A Paper Anchor, which included unexpected nods to influences as varied as sleaze rock, alt-country and rockabilly, Atreyu were able to refute at least some accusations of being one of metal’s safe bets.

Bassist Marc McKnight is adamant that the band he joined four years ago was never destined to be a one-trick pony; instead he openly attributes a degree of youthful inexperience to their earlier releases.

“We could write The Curse (2004’s sophomore effort) or Suicide Notes like 20 times over if we wanted to,” he declares, “that stuff has become not easy for us, but it was written when the band were children!”

Referring to his bandmates who played on the debut - singer Alex Varkatzas, guitarists Travis Miguel and Dan Jacobs, and drummer Brandon Saller - McKnight adds “they wrote Suicide Notes when they were 17 /18 years old. We’re all in our 20s now and our records progress with us. We’re lucky to have fans that are just as malleable as we are. You know, they love Atreyu for Atreyu, they don’t care what we write, they just know we’re going to do our best.”

Honestly, it’s not hard to see why the more experienced/jaded music fan would balk at statements like that, nor why, by contrast, a label looking for metal to please the masses might come running to a band that readily describes itself as ‘malleable’.

There is something quite enjoyably kitsch though about a group that will as soon stamp its name on hockey sticks and snowboards as on t-shirts and record sleeves (Marc proudly reports Atreyu are “the first” to explores these avenues of merchandising), and allow itself to be immortalized in video game form, as Atreyu did during a promotional campaign for single ‘Falling Down’.

It’s all a little reminiscent of metal’s last generation of chart conquering pretty boys, the similarly ridiculed glam metal set. And surprisingly Atreyu don’t resent the likening to Gene Simmons and co’s pinball machine marketing schemes one bit. Having already recorded a cover of Bon Jovi’s ‘You Give Love A Bad Name’, collaborated with Josh Todd, frontman for neo-glam superstars Buckcherry, and in Jacobs’s case, gone into business with Rokk, a t-shirt line modelled on the imagery of that taste-forsaken era, it’s an influence they openly embrace.

Lead Sails, their ‘coming-of-age’ album, at first had critics in conditions ranging from stable but surprised to paralyzed with confusion. Yet it was proved to be a well calculated risk this April when, mere months after its original release, it was deemed worthy of a re-pressing.

The reissue, as McKnight keenly points out, is stuffed with extras in the way of bonus cover versions, video profiles on the band, access to exclusive online content and, perhaps most notably, new track ‘The Squeeze’, a relatively heavy offering making some grown-up nods to the group’s more narrow metalcore beginnings.

“I think one of the most fun parts about this band is that even we have no idea where we’re heading when we sit down to write,” says McKnight. “We just write what comes out, we never formulate anything, and ‘The Squeeze’ really proves that. It didn’t take any time, it felt like it was very natural and it was a good feeling because after the last record we did get so much flak for being a little less heavy, although we’re still a heavy band.”

The 12 months or so since Lead Sails’s original release date have been eaten up by the kind of intensive worldwide touring that any rock stars still blissfully innocent to carbon foot printing would be proud of. Having spent the summer on mammoth US trek, Projekt Revolution, the band are soon to be back on the highway and headed to Europe as headliners of the annual Taste Of Chaos package. If not particularly conducive to knuckling down to the next album (McKnight confesses, Atreyu is “definitely not” a group built for writing on the road), all this travel has nonetheless provided a goldmine of inspiration for the bassist’s multimedia visual art sideline under the name of Porter McKnight.

“I try to incorporate artwork into my everyday life,” he says. “When I’m travelling I take an insane amount of photos of the places I go and try to document everything. When I get home it’s just like an explosion, I make art all day long, it’s the best feeling in the world.”

Currently spending some rare days at home in the lead up to Taste Of Chaos, collaborating on a promo video for pop punker friends Alkaline Trio, McKnight reiterates “it’s hard on the road just to find an environment to create in, but I’m sure Travis is home playing an acoustic and writing different parts and I’m sure Dan is doing the same thing. And I’m sure when it comes time to record this demo for the new record we’ll take all these pieces we’ve made over time and just put ‘em together.”

While that much he may be sure of, the bassist is placing no bets on exactly how Atreyu will follow a curveball like Lead Sails.

“Like I said we could write those other albums 20 times and just maintain our popularity off one certain sound, but why?” he shrugs. “It’s just too limiting, and we all have way too high a level of ADD to sit and do the same thing over and over again.”

With that being the sickness of today’s kids you hope and pray Atreyu can keep it fresh enough to avoid being swept away when attention inevitably wanes from the metalcore explosion. Meanwhile there’s no shame to indulging in some dumb, fun moshing once more when they hit the UK this October.

Not least when that live favourite, the Bon Jovi cover rears its head...