It begins with what sounds like an airplane, soaring toward some far-away lands. It ends with the lot of us, curious observers all, staring into the sun and watching this bizarre aircraft drift further into the cosmos.

It begins at dawn.

And so we’ve been hearing most of these cuts from Aqueous’ new album, Cycles, for at least a few tours now (“The Median” dates back to Jan. 31, 2013, for instance). The compositional work has evolved onstage alongside the band’s own improvisatory development. But here, in-studio and via dynamite speakers, each song explodes in ways previously unimaginable. These guys know their way around the studio, allowing their personal touch to complement the fine work of Justin Rose and Richie English at Buffalo’s GCR Audio and Jocko at More Sound in Syracuse.

It’s worth pointing out that the two as-yet-unperformed compositions, the instrumentals “Dawn” and “Wandering,” are very relevant signifiers here. The former, what with its mournful a capella dirge, opens the album and lets us know something ontological is taking shape. The latter bridges “Complex Pt. I” and “Complex Pt. II,” sealing the album’s climactic suite first hinted at during a March 2014 gig in Erie, Pa.

Cycles is the touchstone of a band that, seven years in on their journey, knows exactly what they want.

“Kitty Chaser (Explosions)” gets the album going in earnest, dropping a flanged-out funk melody on top of jaunty piano work and a steady clapping beat. Mike Gantzer, guitarist and singer, opens up his voice in ways he hadn’t on previous albums. There’s an anthemic quality to much of the band’s work lately — a sense captured well in this song’s chorus and riddling the structure of the rest of Cycles’ 10-song onslaught. Dave Loss (guitar, keys, vocals), Evan McPhaden (bass) and recently and amicably departed drummer Nick Sonricker round out the performers here.

It’s a layered album. Clearly, the guys in the band, who had a hefty hand in production and mixing, shot for the stars in terms of getting their atmospheric live sound into the studio. Take a look at the pedal boards onstage next time, and consider that a) all of those tools are put to good use throughout their catalog and b) every tune on Cycles gets a boost from such care. Bonus: There are brass and classical strings accents throughout (see the climactic “Staring into the Sun” for great use of both).

And it’s a lyrical album, too. The band cooks up introspective philosophy and good vibes with a knack for creative structures and metaphor. The images are evocative, even if they’re esoteric at times. See “King for a Day” and “The Median” for fine examples thereof.

“The Median,” a dispatch worth a postcard all its own from the band’s outer space journey, requires getting into on a more specific level. If there’s one track that might sum up the band’s technical/musical energy, it’d be this one. The intro is eerie, the guitar lines are explosive. The verses, tighter than a six-day clock, are smooth and dynamic (bordering on, like, early Nick Hexum stuff [see 1995’s “Random”]). And from McPhaden’s funky bass lines, Loss leads the band to fuzzy heights in the song’s towering jam section.

Among the most important parts in the album, though, comes at 2:36 in “The Median,” when Loss’ springy keys interlude shows up over tight, tight percussion work. The bridge builds around that melody until segueing swimmingly into the tune’s final verse around 3:10. It’s right there — that switch from Gantzer’s melodic guitar ascent into verse — when most listeners will fall back into their seats and wonder aloud: Are these guys actually aliens?

That moment is the 2014 corollary to the “Gordon’s Mule” changeover (you know the one) from the band’s previous album, Willy Is 40. The mind reels at stuff like that, and Aqueous drops it in droves on this new one.

There’s an energy in this band that’s not nearly as evident in other upstart bands dabbling in similar jam-based genres. Rubbing elbows with prog structures, dabbling in funk, stretching muscles over hip-hop caffeine beats on the low end: They kinda do it all. And given the ascension of this band over the past couple years, Cycles is the ideal place to start for the uninitiated.

The album wraps with the 15-minute “Staring into the Sun,” which segues Floydianly out of the distorted slide guitar anthem “King for a Day.” When “Staring” first show up in setlists earlier this year, the song’s vibe confirmed what was only hinted in other Cycles debuts like “20/20” or “Skyway.” This final song rocks in a really cool way, blending the aforementioned progressive stuff with funk and kind of gathering the preceding tunes’ aesthetic in a grand statement.

The whole thing clocks in at 74 minutes, with the final seconds of “Staring” spent returning us to that Doppler effect aircraft hum from the album’s intro.

Turns out it wasn’t an airplane, after all. It was a spaceship.