Amid a swarm of guitar cables and scattered candy wrappers, the five members of Ames rock group For The Better clasp their hands in prayer. The pale yellow walls of their rehearsal space echo the impatient hum of amplifiers.

Soon, these amps will fill the room with the infectious melodies of “Under Darkened Skies,” FTB’s new self-released album. But for the moment, the band’s thoughts are elsewhere.

Vocalist Ryan Seiler leads the band in prayer, asking God for guidance in their musical pursuits.

“If you want this band to end — end it,” Seiler prays. “But if you want us to keep going, just give us the strength to get better.”

The band then launches into song, combining enthusiastic punk energy with some of the tightest vocal harmonies since your favorite *NSync album.

Seiler, alongside vocalists/guitarists Jason Munday and Adam Sisson, front the band with the presence of three brothers. Their knack for trading and intertwining melodies is almost intuitive, despite their denial of any previous singing experience.

And the creative rhythm section of Luke Conard and newly-added bassist Ben Erbes, freshman in liberal arts and sciences, propels the music forward.

For the guys in For The Better, music and religion are parts of life. But that doesn’t mean they want to be pigeonholed as a “Christian band.”

“Every band has to stand for something,” Sisson says. “You take any band out there, whether they play on the radio or [are] local, the lead singer is writing about something. This is what we stand for; this is what we choose to write about.”

Munday adds that being labeled restricts the number of fans the band can reach with their music.

The band hopes their religion doesn’t frighten people away from their music. And it shouldn’t. Combining influences ranging from melodic hardcore bands like Finch, Thursday and the Used to the folk sounds of Nickel Creek, For The Better has the power to rock people of all creeds.

“We’re all human, so we all have problems in our lives; we all have struggles,” Munday says, adding that the band’s lyrics often deal with those struggles.

“People sometimes think that since we’re in a band that we’re perfect. We write about stuff like that, and that helps to make people realize that we’re just regular people.”

But don’t get the wrong idea — For The Better doesn’t sugarcoat its message. In fact, much of the new album is quite dark lyrically, dealing with lost love and remorse.

“My mom always says, ‘Why don’t you write about something that’s happy?’ ” Seiler says. “A lot of our songs are about the darkened state of this world.”

But the prevailing message of their music is one of optimism.

“There’s a huge sense of hope, because we have a huge hope in us,” Seiler says.

“Hope is probably our biggest message overall,” Munday adds.

So For The Better isn’t quite a gospel group. In fact, the 14 songs that compose “Under Darkened Skies” blend aspects of punk, folk, rock and emo. But that doesn’t mean the band members mind if they spread a Christian message through their music.

“A Christian message is probably the most important thing we could do,” Munday says. “But just being labeled that way can sometimes scare people away.”

“People have such a negative idea of why people want to spread Christianity,” Seiler adds. “We just have a total hope in God, and we just want to share that. It would be pretty selfish not to.”