Standout Track:

No. 7, “Aeons Calling,” which combines the brutal power of meathead-metal act Raven and the technical proficiency of Helloween. Over a barrage of anthemic riffs, guitarist-vocalist Matt Aub muses on mankind’s spacefaring future: “Soundless means propel us to new worlds/Will our race sustain or die?”

Musical Motivation:

Aub confesses that the Springfield, Va., quartet owes a debt to the sci-fi themes of ’80s Quebecois thrashers Voivod. For “Aeons Calling,” he was inspired by astronomer Carl Sagan’s books Cosmos and The Demon-Haunted World. “Sagan likes to present various scenarios in his books,” says Aub. “‘Aeons Calling’ deals with mankind’s search for a new life-sustaining planet after Earth’s resources are depleted.”

The TARDIS Part:

Timelord’s name has nothing overtly to do with the Time Lords, the time-travel society on the sci-fi program Doctor Who, though Aub does recall once seeing “part of an old episode that involved several people being attacked by a giant rubber oyster.” Regeneration’s title, however, did result from Aub learning about the regenerative properties of the Time Lords. The band name comes from a video game called Attack of the Timelord!, a “blatant rip-off of Galaga” for the late-’70s home-video-game system Odyssey². Regeneration includes tracks like “Wardozer” and “Cult of the Dead,” but his video-game habits today entail chilled-out sessions of Bee Movie Game with his young niece. “We take turns flying through the honeycomb looking for stuff,” he says. —David Dunlap Jr.

Timelord plays Jammin’ Java on Saturday, Feb. 9.