The band’s bludgeoning riffs alone would have won respect, but Christmas’s disturbing child-woman affectations and paint-peeling screams make its music creepily compulsive: Trophy, Made Out of Babies’ 2005 debut, was the result of the first time the respected Neurot label had signed a band based on an unsolicited demo. Tobin characterizes Coward, a 2006 follow-up featuring Steve Albini’s dry, abrasive production, as Trophy done right. By the time Made Out of Babies finished touring in support of Coward, the members already knew they wanted to break new ground for what would become their third album, The Ruiner (to be released on Tuesday 24). The time needed to do so was a luxury that Tobin’s recently acquired, extensively refurbished studio would finally allow.

“The guys and I would work on stuff during the week,” Tobin says, recalling elaborate arrangements with guest contributions from members of Red Sparowes (in which Tobin plays) and Mouth of the Architect. Those sessions produced slabs of guitar layered to orchestral density, spiraling arabesques and Zeppelin-spawned acoustic breakdowns. The sound was deeper and heavier than ever, but some of the melodies that emerged were so pretty, the players were worried they might be mistaken for pop songs. Christmas would show up for marathon weekend listening sessions to conceive vocal lines and lyrics. “She’d go downstairs while I’d clean my apartment. Then I’d hear her call, ‘Brendan…’ from the bottom of the stairs, and I’d go down there and work. A lot of stuff was being thrown around the room, I remember, and a lot of, ‘Uhhff, I can’t do this!’ But then with almost every song, there’d be a moment like, Ding!”

Christmas cackles steadily through Tobin’s account. Former lovers, now friends, the diminutive, uproariously acid-tongued singer and towering, tattooed, easygoing guitarist share a tight repartee colored with the slight tension of people who keep no secrets from one another. Sometimes they finish each other’s thoughts; at other moments, Christmas tartly challenges Tobin’s recollections. (Egan, who arrives late, offers elaborations and slapstick rim shots.) In her lyrics for The Ruiner, she drew spiritual inspiration—though not literal themes—from dark-edged classics including Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Grimm’s Fairy Tales, resulting in some of her most vivid, unsettling imagery to date.

Other changes of direction also had an impact on The Ruiner. Made Out of Babies worked with producer-engineer Andrew Schneider at nearby Translator Audio, who happily incorporated material recorded off the clock in Tobin’s studio. Meanwhile, the group signed to the End, a decade-old Brooklyn metal label that has recently taken an increased interest in unorthodox acts. (Other bands on its roster include Bay Area dark-prog combo Sleepytime Gorilla Museum and flamboyant Japanese black-metal act Sigh.) The new label waited patiently as the band labored over its experiments, and eagerly greeted the results.

“It was definitely an album where we knew that even if everyone hated it, we really felt like we did it right,” Christmas says. The singer, who had explored more vulnerable modes in the harrowing side project Battle of Mice and even recorded a Jacques Brel ballad for a forthcoming solo album, The Bad Wife, points to the track “Stranger,” on which she captured an especially melodic, sensitive performance. “I had to be ready to just suck to try something like that,” she says. “It’s definitely the kind of thing where you feel naked in front of people to sing like that. But what’s the difficulty of being really heavy all the time?” she wonders. “There isn’t much risk involved in pretending that you’re tough.”

Made Out of Babies plays Union Pool Tue, June 24; The Ruiner is out on the End the same day.