Winston McCall, vocalist with Byron Bay metalcore institution Parkway Drive, is reflecting on the state of world affairs of late. He's suitably incensed but figures there are two possible responses: complacency or anger. He chose to channel the latter on the group's appropriately titled fifth album, Ire.

"It's very hard to function in the world today and not be aware of the fact that our systems of governance, freedom, education, learning and information are very twisted," McCall says.

"We live in a time where we have advanced technology beyond anything we've ever had – we communicate better than in the past, we see ourselves as the most evolved beings we've ever been – and yet when you look at the suffering we're causing, it doesn't add up to this dream that we're championing."

McCall says he wants to see changes that go beyond simply weeding out a couple of people in a system that isn't functioning in the best interests of human advancement.

Eschewing the stereotype that metalcore is self-concerned and simplistic, on their latest album Parkway Drive seek to challenge listeners with material that is thought-provoking and stylistically fresh. Recorded with the group's soundman of seven years, George Hadjichristou, Ire may be the most pure distillation of the band's sound to date.

Take, for example, the second single Crushed, which betrays the band's love for recently re-activated 90s agitators Rage Against the Machine. It's a thoroughly bruising track featuring Middle Eastern chants, a thunderous main riff and probing lyrics.

"There's a line in that song that says, 'It's cash, blood and oil in the age of the refugee', McCall says. "I'm like, 'Man, I was writing about this shit on the first song that we ever wrote in this band and 12 years later we're still having these arguments in the exact same vein about the same shit. Nothing's changed!

"It's simply a case of realising that complacency cannot be an option if you really want to make a difference. If you really care about someone other than yourself you can't sit back and hope that someone else is going to make a change, you have to translate that feeling into an emotion and that emotion needs to be anger.

"It's not wrong to be angry, it might be wrong to act out that anger but feeling that anger is something that needs to be acknowledged."

Since emerging from Byron Bay in 2003, Parkway Drive have become something of an institution in the Australian hardcore scene, achieving an unprecedented level of cross-over appeal – witness McCall's appearance on the much-loved ABC music quiz show Spicks and Specks in 2011. It would have been easy for the group to play it safe and release an album that stayed true to the melodic death metal template they've been perfecting for years. It's encouraging to see the band taking risks this far into their career.

McCall acknowledges that as a musician, he is in a great position to channel his anger in a positive way.

"I've never felt like writing about bullshit. I'm not going to write pop songs, like fluff. I'm very conscious of the fact that it's music and I want it to be musical, but at the same time the reason I started doing this was that the music connected with me on a personal level. It spoke to me on subject matter that wasn't just contrived and self-important. So that's what it is and what it's always going to be."

Parkway Drive

When: October 10, 6.30pm

Where: UC Refectory, Bruce

Tickets: $60.20 from tickets.oztix.com.au