Chiodos knew exactly what it was after on Bone Palace Ballet, a record that proves My Chemical Romance and Panic at the Disco aren’t the only post-emo upstarts obsessed with classic-rock kings Queen.

“The plan was to make things epic and full and beautiful,” reveals keyboardist Bradley Bell, on the line from a Fort Worth, Texas, tour stop. “With all the layering that we did, the goal was definitely to go after what Queen used to do: make everything as intricate as possible. We actually had some Pro Tools sessions where we went through a couple of Queen songs. That was interesting, listening to all the things that they added on top of each other. It really inspired us to go all out on this record.”

As Bell notes, from the songs’ names on down, Chiodos definitely didn’t go the minimalist route on Bone Palace Ballet, a record where crystalline piano and funeral-service strings coexist with rage-disorder vocals and terminate-everything guitars. From start to finish, things are never less than dramatic. “Life Is a Perception of Your Own Reality” sounds like show-tune boogie for the Taste of Chaos crowd; “Undertaker’s Thirst for Revenge Is Unquenchable (The Final Battle)” arcs from punishing electro squalls to soft-focus MOR; and “Is It Progression If a Cannibal Uses a Fork?” fuses Carmina Burana–style chanting with metal-drift guitars and ice-palace keyboards.

In the spirit of Freddie Mercury and company, Chiodos wanted to keep things organic. So when the coffin-black cellos and mournful violins swell up in the middle of “Intensity in Ten Cities”, you’re hearing actual players as opposed to microchip-powered facsimiles.

“It would have been easy enough to use the string patches on my keyboards,” Bell offers. “But we decided we wanted the real deal. We figured that would make the songs sound more alive.”

What makes Bone Palace Ballet all the more impressive is that, at the beginning of the recording process, Chiodos had zero idea of what direction it would be taking.

“The record was not easy,” admits the keyboardist. “We’re a band that tours a lot, and writing on the road is really hard. Once we finally decided that we needed to come off the road and get into the studio, we didn’t have as much material as we would have liked. We actually ended up with writer’s block—we were really freaked out by having to go into the studio when we weren’t ready. Basically we had like a million parts, but no real songs. But once we started putting them all together, things turned out great.”

So great, in fact, that when Chiodos was ready to hit the road for Bone Palace Ballet, the band’s six members realized they had a problem: re-creating the album’s more majestic moments on-stage. Click tracks and samples aside, Queen—which no doubt wondered how the hell it would pull off “Bohemian Rhapsody” live—might have been able to relate to their dilemma.

“I don’t think we really thought about the live aspect of our show when we were working on the songs,” Bell says. “We’ve figured it out, though—we use a lot of samples and click tracks now. If anything, I think it’s helped out our performances by making us a tighter band.”

Chiodos plays the Croatian Cultural Centre on Friday (April 11).