“We never blew up and exploded overnight,” guitarist JB Brubaker said. “We grew at an organic pace and amassed a following that way. That’s the difference between us and some of the bands that go away as quickly as they come.”

The Pennsylvania-based group — which got its name from a newspaper headline detailing a founding member’s unstable ex burning his dog alive — gradually garnered its devout following within secular and Christian audiences starting in 2003 with a dense, vicious noise that, in retrospect, didn’t carry much actual weight despite a spiritually informed message pinned onto its underbelly.

“When we started out, we just wanted to be a heavy mosh band. We didn’t care about anything but playing breakdowns,” Brubaker said. “At that point, we really weren’t capable of doing much else than chugging on an open C. It was fun, but it got boring.”

But 2007’s “Messengers” and 2009’s breakout “Constellations” found the band musically growing up to a certain extent, and also gave it a unique identity among the hard-core set.

“Initially, we were playing weird time signatures, and it wasn’t as cookie-cutter as a lot of what the other bands were doing. I think we kind of pioneered that — not that we invented it — but it’s something more bands are doing now,” Brubaker said. “We’ve always, especially now, been motivated to write songs that are different from the other bands in this scene. We don’t want to be the copycats; we want to be one step ahead.”

August Burns Red’s newest album, “Leveler,” has the group breaking new ground in that relative wilderness by broadcasting a sound that strikes an unfamiliar line between metal and hardcore. Crowds have responded by making the effort its highest-charting to date.

“There’s a lot more experimentation than there’s ever been. We branched into genres we’ve never explored before,” Brubaker said. “We actually sang on this record. It’s a big step for us, and I hope we can use that to build on.”