Old Time Relijun plays at AS220 in Providence Saturday night with Chinese Stars, AIDS Wolf, Made in Mexico and Tinsel Teeth.

Underneath the screeching, howling, pounding and wailing, Catharsis in Crisis, the latest record from Old Time Relijun, makes a case for a grand scope and ambition. The down-and-dirty Olympia, Wash.-based band, reminiscent of some of the most abrasive work of Captain Beefheart and the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, turns in this record as the third work in the Lost Light Trilogy, a suite of records begun with 2004’s Lost Light and continued with 2005’s 2012 disc.

Singer and songwriter Arrington de Dionyso, who’ll be with the band at AS220 on Saturday, says that each album in the trilogy stands on its own, “and yet every song on all three records is interconnected. In my mind I think of it as a labyrinth. Imagine them as portals, if you will, that go between songs from album to album. You could listen to it from start to finish on all three records, and it would have a particular type of story line. And yet if you could find the musical connections, or the lyrical connections, then there’s another, more intuitive story that’s being told.”

He describes the albums as a cycle of songs written over a four-year period (in the 10-year history of the band) about “birth, death, rebirth; it’s about a searching and a yearning for self-knowledge, for love. … These kind of things that dreams and mythology are made of.”

In contrast to the clichÉd genesis of the concept album or trilogy that was created with an outward-looking focus, de Dinoyso says he looked inward during the writing of these songs.

“I was in the midst of taking the steps to make a living from my music for the first time in my life. And it brought me a lot of freedom, but I was very spun out on the world, and not very tied down to much of anything for several years.” This led de Dionyso to travels through Europe, L.A., New York, Japan, South America and more. “I was trying to gain a better understanding of my own inner workings. So the songs, lyrically, these are about three or four years of dream journals and journals and notes I’d take.” The band works out the music with de Dionyso, and he’s usually still editing the lyrics while the instrumental tracks are being recorded. The juxtaposition of the lofty ideals of the music and the actual sound of it, in which everything sounds like it’s had a layer of dirt thrown on it, is nothing new for the band. “I think we all embrace process itself, just as much as producing the end result itself. We embrace the mistake; we embrace the inspiration of the moment; we embrace the accident. Many of the songs are formulated by the areas where the music starts falling apart at the seams. It reaches into a deeper level and kind of becomes characteristic of the song itself.”

And de Dionyso says that “the spiritual element” is what it’s all about. “When you start using that kind of phraseology, it’s difficult, because that means a lot of different things to different people. But I really believe that there’s something sacred about the creative process itself.”

The last two songs of Catharsis in Crisis, “In the Crown of Lost Lights” and “The Invisible New” are “both key songs in providing a resolution for all three albums,” de Dionyso says. The chorus to “In the Crown of Lost Lights” goes “Pulsating light, vibrating life/ In the crown of lost light,” and de Dionyso draws a parallel not only to the creative process but to live performance.

“When I give myself over to the music, there’s such a power to the sound that moves through a band, I really do feel this literal sensation of being illuminated. There’s a light that’s touching all of us, reaching through from us to the audience. I feel like it’s something that’s on the recording itself. It’s not just another punk-rock record, in my mind; it’s a door that opens to a parallel universe and the way I think about it.”

Old Time Relijun plays at AS220, 115 Empire St., Providence, Saturday night with Chinese Stars, AIDS Wolf, Made in Mexico and Tinsel Teeth. The show starts at 8 and admission is $8; call (401) 831-9327.

Boston rock history

Brett Milano has been kicking around, and writing about, the Boston rock scene probably longer than even I know about. And that’s a while. He was surely born to write The Sound of Our Town: A History of Boston Rock & Roll, and it sure reads like it, as he goes from the ’50s through the ’90s with interviews with the famous and infamous people who were there, all with great and real affection for the subject. He’ll be reading from the book at the Brown Bookstore, 244 Thayer St., Providence, tonight at 6 and it’s free. Call (401) 863-3168.