If there?s a phrase The Transplants would best like to describe themselves (and do so by dropping it into several lyrics on Haunted Cities and its predecessor, 2003?s Transplants) it?s that they ?don?t give a fuck.?

But that?s misleading. The Transplants do give a fuck. Or at least they give a fuck about making music, as Haunted Cities takes the band?s trademark rap/punk hybrid into new directions. Where the band came forth with a debut that mixed the angrier parts of mid-?90s gangsta rap and gritty East Bay punk rock, the trio expands its visions in both directions on its latest. With Rancid front man Tim Armstrong still spearheading the rock, the band relies more upon drummer Travis Barker (ex-Blink 182) and front man Rob Aston to develop more textured and convoluted songscapes that pull the band?s sounds from the Clinton-years ghettos and Reagan-era punk clubs into something distinctly more modern and streamlined.

That makes Haunted Cities a much more diverse album than its predecessor. Where Transplants took the act?s signature gangsta-punk sound from start to finish, on this album The Transplants trip from one sound to the next, flipping the formula to accentuate different parts of the band?s background. Sometimes, the act plays furious numbers that snuggle up to bristling punk rock not too far removed from dozens of hardboiled punk acts (?Not Today?). More often, when the trio stresses its punk roots, Haunted Cities delivers tracks that sound as if they?re refugees from Rancid?s eclectic Life Won?t Wait (1998, Hellcat) era. The act swings through guitar-and-ProTools numbers that force modern production and electronic production techniques onto punk (?American Guns?) and weird piano-looped numbers that aren?t hip-hop as much as a new flavor of punk (?I Want it All?).

As punk as The Transplants' members are, hip-hop, urban and rap usually steal into the mix to keep the band on its hybrid-theory path. Instead of pure gangsta grime, however, the band looks in several different directions for its hip-hop elements this time. Barker steps into a shuffling, swinging beat tempered with blasts of sampled horns that alludes to Outkast?s most playful and jazziest moments (?Doomsday?). Aston?s barking-dog flows and thick beats still combine for a few ominous tracks (?Hit the Fence? and ?Gangsters and Thugs?), but slick vocals and smooth R&B temper The Transplants? usually ferocious side and lets them takes a breather for a song that?d be love-jam-worthy were it not about anomie and frustration (?What I Can?t Describe?).

Some of the most compelling moments, however, come when The Transplants ignore the notion of hip-hop and punk foundations and just get down and get weird. ?Pay Any Price? bubbles with electro-tweaked ambiance that sits behind buzzing, super-overdriven guitars, while ?Killafornia? sounds like The Specials jamming with Eminem. ?Crash and Burn? closes the album with from-the-can steel drums that give the track a Caribbean feel.

Don?t listen to what they say; The Transplants do give a fuck, otherwise they could have just released another record following the formula they created last time. Thank God they didn't, however, as Haunted Cities takes the trio?s eclecticism to new heights.