Coheed and Cambria revel with no restraint

Self-indulgence is frequently seen as a crime in modern rock music, but without it there would have been no Led Zeppelin or “Sgt. Pepper,” no Ziggy Stardust or System of a Down. Overreaching sometimes pays off. And few young bands reach further than the prog-metal act Coheed and Cambria, for whom the extremes of time and space hardly seem to be enough.

The band, led by singer-guitarist Claudio Sanchez, is all high-concept sci-fi of intense melodrama and a war across the stars, but the music rarely gets lost there.

Fans intrigued by the complicated story arc of its first four albums can turn to a series of published comics for guidance. At the Wiltern on Sunday, the focus was on epic sound and fury.

The band stepped out to a genuine roar from the crowd, which immediately began singing along to the title song from the new album, “No World for Tomorrow” (complete title: “Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV, Volume Two: No World for Tomorrow”).

Within C&C;’s hurricane of prog can be heard pieces of metal, emo and the graceful pop hooks that have landed this complex mix on rock radio. Sanchez’s massive tangle of curls is the biggest hair in the Top 200.

Somehow, the band rarely gets bogged down in the fantastic and mystical, which might otherwise relegate it to the overkill of early Styx or (more alarming) the comical excesses of Tenacious D. While the music may be a storm of complicated noise, it is usually built on a solid melodic core, with flashes of fitting Pink Floyd-sized guitar heroism. No noodling.

Coheed and Cambria is often seen as this prog generation’s Rush, but the new album pulls back from the cosmos for some ground-level drama. Sanchez warns of global warming on the title track and contemplates a mercy killing on the brooding, anxious “Justice in Murder.” It’s mind expansion on a human scale.

Much of Sunday’s 90-minute set was delivered at a typically breathless, frantic pace, as fans joined in on air guitar.

Things slowed down long enough for lighters to rise above the crowd for “Mother Superior,” which began at a quiet, delicate pace on Sanchez’s guitar before soaring again with the full band.

There were big hooks in “The Suffering” (from 2005), another of the band’s unlikely pop hits. Behind Sanchez was a pair of female backup singers, who never once came close to interfering with his icy, emotional wail.

For Coheed and Cambria, self-indulgence means never holding back.