Madder Rose are back. Yay. After trying to meld their trademark lethargic lysergic pop with elements of trip-hop-- a notion which looked great on paper but resulted in 1997's bizarrely abysmal Tragic Magic-- Madder Rose return to form with Hello June Fool. The album's not quite on par with 1994's Panic On, but it's a hopeful sign that the band's getting back on track.

For those of you just joining us, Panic On was one of a few great albums stuck in the mid-'90s post- alternative major- label netherworld: too slick and straightforward for the indie/ college crowd, and yet too edgy for the label push it into the mainstream consciousness. It's a shame, too, because Panic On had a real chance to break into the adult- alternative side of radio and still retain a reasonable amount of credibility-- credibility which was more or less destroyed anyway once Tragic Magic, with its ponderously generic beats and lack of songwriting focus, came out.

But that was then, and this is now. And Hello June Fool sounds as if Madder Rose has realized their mistakes and retreated to more familiar territory, both musically and geographically (the Thirsty Ear labe is, like the band, based out of New York). On tracks like "Feels Like Summer," "Talking to Myself," and the album's title track, it's like the last five years never happened; the warm narcotic haze of the guitars envelops you like an old blanket, but Mary Lorson's vocals, still cold as ice- nine, keep you from passing out completely.

The keyboards and sampled beats of Tragic Magic linger, but they're more judiciously deployed. "Something" rips off the groove from the Stone Roses' "Fool's Gold," but makes up for it with its killer chorus; "Train" welds bluesy riff fragments onto a dubby rhythm, and lets Lorson's double- tracked vocals slither all over everything. It's good to see that Madder Rose's sultry sonic soma is still available without a prescription; better still that they've taken a slightly more conservative approach to expanding their sound. Maybe on their next album they'll be able to make the trip-hop thing work.

-Nick Mirov