Metallica, Slayer, Iron Maiden, Motorhead. Amidst the club of hardcore metal band names, Asking Alexandria doesn’t seem to fit.

But don’t let their name fool you. Listen to “Don’t Pray For Me,” the first song on their latest album From Death to Destiny, and it’s clear the British band is a force of its own. The song begins with sound effects reminiscent of a metal Super Mario video game mixed with classical strings before launching into brute-force guitar and a heavy drum attack while screaming, “You’re fucking crazy, if you think that I’ll ever change / I am I, I am me, I’ll never change my ways.”

Don’t be scared. Amidst the traditional metal screams lie catchy choruses accessible to a non-metal audience, evoking the metal-core Slipknot and Avenged Sevenfold, but also Blink-182.

To an outsider, metal can come off simply as pent-up rage and spewed profanities, but at least in “Don’t Pray For Me,” Asking Alexandria uses the genre to passionately express a message worthy of even a children’s fable: Be yourself.

The band practices what they preach, whether that means asking a crowd to tear down a decaying roof at a venue they were playing to covering an Akon song that now has more than 10 million YouTube views. The roof of the McDonald is sound, but who knows what the power of metal will bring.

Asking Alexandria plays with Bless The Fall, Chelsea Grin, Upon A Burning Body and The Family Ruin 6:30 pm Monday, Dec. 1, at McDonald Theatre; $25 adv., $28 door, all-ages.