Action-rockers Monty Are I will perform Friday at Lupo’s in Providence.

Monty Are I has a lot more to celebrate than a new CD Friday at Lupo’s.

Sure, Break Through the Silence is a winner — more on that in a second. But the disc, which came out Sept. 22, couldn’t have come at a better time for the Cranston-based “action rock” band.

The quintet put out its last disc, Wall of People, on the new Stolen Transmission label, a subsidiary of Island Records, in 2006, and promoted it the old-fashioned way — the same kind of relentless touring that the band has done through most of its history, including three Warped Tours.

Then in 2007, the label folded. The band members found out via an e-mail from their lawyer. Now the question was: Would Monty get released from its recording contract, or would it be absorbed into the main Island Records company?

For nearly two years, the band had to deal with the worst-case scenario: Neither.

Singer and guitarist Steve Aiello says, “The waiting period was the weird thing. Sitting around kind of messed with us a bit. There was no definite future ahead of us.”

Keyboardist Andrew Borstein says that waiting for Island to make a decision was excruciating: “It was always ‘next week,’ ‘next month,’ and it turned out to be many, many months.”

The band was contractually bound to stick with either Island or Rob Stevenson, the former head of Stolen Transmission. Stevenson told the band that he was headed for bigger and better things (he’s now president of Virgin Records US) but couldn’t specify. “We couldn’t have even just said, ‘Let’s go somewhere else,’ ” Borstein points out.

So they waited, playing very infrequently. There was no point touring behind a three-year-old record, drummer Justin Muir says; they couldn’t get an opening spot on a major tour for the same reason.

Ryan Muir, who plays guitar and trumpet and sings, says, “We weren’t necessarily a priority at that point.”

Aiello cracks, “They could have either really worked at putting the Mariah Carey record out, or they could have worked on upstreaming Monty Are I.”

So they waited some more. In the meantime, they wrote more songs, and Island advanced them the money to record — though they reserved judgment on whether to put a disc out.

Finally, the band was called to Los Angeles to do a showcase for label head L.A. Reid — “basically six CEOs in the room,” Aiello says, with a mirror on the back wall that made them even more self-conscious. “That was the point,” Aiello adds, “where our manager just said, ‘Bring it.’ ”

Justin Muir says, “It was brought.” The label decided to haul the band up to the big leagues.

Aiello says that writing songs at home in Cranston was OK, but once they headed to the recording studio (they did Break Through the Silence in studios in North and South Hollywood), “it was super tense. I’d go to bed, and then I’d wake up at 4 a.m. and freak out and think, ‘I’ve gotta write this part down so I don’t forget it.’ And the next day, you want to be prepared for going in, and you’re literally thinking of all these ideas.”

“For 14 different songs,” Ryan Muir says.

“Yeah — ‘I gotta finish the lyrics for this; I gotta finish this bridge idea’,” Aiello continues. “And it’s coming at you a million miles an hour.”

In retrospect, Aiello says, the waiting was a blessing: “If we had gone in the first time to make the record, we would have been totally unprepared.” So the good thing about it, in terms of the song aspect, is that we were able to write a lot more, and a lot broader, for the record. And probably half the record, and some of the best material, came after that point.”

And Break Through the Silence could well be the breakthrough the band is hoping for. Produced by Matt Squire and Don Gilmore, whose combined credits include Panic! At the Disco, Boys Like Girls, Linkin Park and Good Charlotte, the disc includes such anthems as the radio-ready lead single “One In a Million” and the arena-sized title track, as well as the angsty-romantic “All Of You Tonight.”

“We needed to go into this writing big songs; I think we knew that,” Aiello says. But … we wanted to do that.”

On a label such as Stolen Transmission, record sales of 50,000 or so might be a decent showing; on Island, that would be a disaster. “We definitely feel that pressure,” Justin Muir says; “we’d be lying if we said we don’t.” Aiello says, “it motivates me to work harder.”

Bassist Mike Matarese says that technically, Island considers them a new band, but that they’re really anything but that — and that that will help them along the way.

“We’ve been doing this for 10 years. We’ve been slinging CDs and recording them on our own; we’ve had record labels that have folded; now we’re on a major. And we’ve met everyone in between, in every situation.”

On the eve of a national tour with Hawthorne Heights, the band knows that the contract and the recording are only a foot in the door. “We did the musical part; now it’s about going on the road, meeting every single person, making that connection and having them be a lifelong, diehard fan. …

“We’ve got resources, but it’s really up to us.”

Monty Are I, The Coming Weak, Lights Resolve, These Green Eyes and The Intel are at Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel, 79 Washington St., Providence, Friday night at 8. Tickets are $10 in advance, $15 the day of the show; call (401) 331-5876 or go to www.etix.com.

rmassimo@projo.com