LOCAL H has never taken the easy way out. Where convention dictates that a rock band requires at least three members, the bass-less Local H generates more than enough glorious noise with just two. For their unpredictable, seismic live shows, Local H has been known to play sets comprised entirely of audience requests, book themselves into a club under a different name, or personally dole out tickets to fans instructed to confront the musicians on the street and quote a phrase from a Rush album. Formed in Zion, Illinois, Local H has always been a maverick outfit, pushing on through challenges that would have finished most bands. The earliest albums — Ham Fisted (1995), As Good as Dead (1996) and Pack Up the Cats (1998) — went a long way toward establishing the band as a new creative force. Now, on 12 ANGRY MONTHS, their seventh album in a career well into its second decade, Local H once again boldly dodges clichés and expectations, crafting a set of interrelated songs revolving around one of life’s most miserable experiences, the nasty breakup.

12 Angry Months, the Shout! Factory debut for Scott Lucas (guitar and vocals) and Brian St. Clair (drums) — and Local H’s first new studio album since 2004’s Whatever Happened to P.J. Soles? — is a years in the making tour de force. Its dozen original songs — each tagged to a different month of the year — pick up where romance is already dead and things are about to get even worse for the dumpee. Unlike most songs dealing with the after-effects of a once-thriving, now-fizzled love, the dramas on 12 Angry Months bypass the same old hackneyed sentiments and drill straight to the core. In “The One with ‘Kid’,” the leadoff track, Lucas demands to know not only how the departing couple will divvy up their friends and who gets to hang out in their favorite haunts, but what his ex did with his CDs and records and when he’s going to get them back. It’s a real-life, everyday approach to a shattering event that most songwriters would forego while instead whining how they’ll never be able to go on living without the dumper.

“Rather than putting in things like the sea, the moon and the stars, I go into specifics,” says Lucas about his lyrical pinpointing. “Then it becomes this universal thing. I can look at these songs and apply them to any breakup I’ve ever had and anybody ever would have.” As the saga unfolds, we meet the former flame’s new boyfriend (“BMW Man”), start reluctantly and awkwardly crawling back from the abyss (“Taxi-Cabs”), experience the panic of realization that it’s truly final and play the self-blame game (“Simple Pleas”), and finally move on with life (“Hand to Mouth”). Throughout, Lucas’ stunningly aggressive and empathic guitar work and St. Clair’s powerhouse, precision drumming drive home the range of evocative emotions, sliding from seething rage to despondency to concession and everything in between. In “Machine Shed Wrestling,” which marks October on Local H’s splitsville calendar, Lucas snaps, “All I am is a husk of a man / I cannot go through this again / You’re not a woman and you know that I’ve pretended all I can / All I am is a victim of love, check the box marked none of the above.”

Lucas began piecing together the ideas that would ultimately coalesce into 12 Angry Months about four years ago, but because Local H tours almost constantly the writing and recording was consummated in fits and starts. Finally, the pieces fell into place. “I kind of knew that what we wanted to do was make a breakup record, so I spent a lot of time listening to good breakup records like [Bob Dylan’s] Blood on the Tracks and Aftermath by the Rolling Stones,” he says, “just trying to come up with something that was about breakups but not in a maudlin way. I wanted to make an angry record. Then the basic tracks were recorded really quickly. We just kind of went in there and did it.” Scott proudly agrees that 12 Angry Months falls into the sometimes maligned category of concept album. “I’m a really huge Pink Floyd fan and so the idea of concept records and things like that has informed a lot of what we’ve done from the beginning,” he says. “Every time we do something that focuses around a theme, it’s just something that’s in the air at the time around me. Then I start to see things going on and once I see a thread that ties a couple of songs together I go in that direction and keep going.”

A sense of humor and playfulness has always marked Local H. For 10 years, the band played a special Halloween show at Chicago’s Double Door nightclub, each time performing a full set of music by another band, ranging from the Sex Pistols to The Doors, Zeppelin, Oasis, Kiss, Nirvana and Tom Petty. For the all-request tour, audience members chose songs from a sushi-like menu, from which the band then devised each set list. Last year, those who wanted to attend Local H’s show at Chicago’s US Cellular Field needed to locate the band members, then repeat a phrase from Rush’s 2112 album, “Attention all planets of the solar federation! We have assumed control,” in order to receive tickets. And there’s more in store. To celebrate the release of 12 Angry Months, Scott and Brian are planning on a weeklong series of shows during which they would re-create the band’s seven albums, a different one each day. “That’s gonna be a pain in the ass,” Lucas admits. But since when has that ever stopped Local H? 12 Angry Months will be available for purchase in stores on May 13.