Four years ago, The Badlees were a major-label act selling hundreds of thousands of albums and touring on a national scale.

Two years ago, after being sucker-punched twice by the major label powers-that-be, the band returned to Central Pa. and re-established itself as a veritable rock and roll institution on the local front. But for the past year and a half, The Badlees' now-you-see-them, now-you-don't behavior has left fans confused.

Early rumors that the band had broken up were seemingly confirmed as the band's side projects started popping up left and right. Lead singer Pete Palladino enlisted The Jellybricks as his back-up band and hit the road with a catalog of power pop tunes. Guitarist Bret Alexander, bassist Paul Smith, and drummer Ron Simasek formed alt-country trio The Cellarbirds. And guitarist Jeff Feltenberger strutted his stuff as the mastermind behind Echotown. Meanwhile, two or three Badlees could be found on any given night playing a set of Badlees tunes.

However, while the confusion of the various side projects lingers on, there is some wonderful news that will make fans of the fab five feel much better: The Badlees are back.

Back and better than ever, in this writer's opinion. Their new album, Renew, to be released June 4, is a showcase of smart, melodic tunes that are structurally tight and emotionally honest. The album is an artistically credible, cohesive effort blessed with incidental first-listen appeal.

It's rock and roll, really. But peel back a layer of crunchy guitars, and Renew is revealed to be a collection of sweet folk-country songs dressed up in pop-rock clothing. Lilting country riffs and dobro lines are juxtaposed over programmed beats on one track, only to yield to the trademark straight-as-an-arrow drumming and dueling distortion guitar tracks a la Son Volt on the next.

The Badlees are exploring new territory, a venture that according to Palladino is by no means limited to the sonic realm. "We knew we wanted to just reinvent everything," he says. "If we had just continued on down the same path, I think that it might have gotten just a little bit boring for us as well as for the fans. So consciously, this is a new direction, everything from the sound of stuff to the imaging of the band to, really, our approach and our attitude.

"It's a great place to start for where we're going to go from here," Palladino continues. "I was listening to the record, and I was joking with my manager, I was like, 'This is really great. I almost want to rename the band!' I want people to listen to it with a fresh ear, and kind of throw out all those preconceptions they have of what The Badlees are."

The Badlees' trials and tribulations at the hands of major labels have been well-documented. However, the significance of the band's reassemblage can't really be understood without that context. And so, allow me to present The Badlees' behind-the-music story:

After building a regional following throughout the early 1990s and selling 10,000 copies of their independent release, River Songs, The Badlees signed a deal with Universal Records in 1995. River Songs was re-released nationally, ultimately selling in excess of 150,000 copies, due primarily to the success of the single "Angeline is Coming Home" on radio and VH1.

So far, so good. With fingers crossed, The Badlees returned to the studio and recorded their follow-up album, Up There Down Here. "Literally, everything was done. The artwork was finished. It was sitting, waiting to be put out," Palladino says.

And that is when fate reared its ugly head in the form of a corporate merger between the band's label, Universal, and another company, resulting in a massive bloodbath of dropped bands and fired employees. "Our folks that were over at Universal ... slowly, one by one as we were waiting, all of those people were losing their jobs. And we knew at that moment that we were going to get dropped. And if we didn't get dropped, we knew that [Universal] would just put that record out there with no promotion whatsoever, and just let it die - and then we would get dropped," he laughs.

"At this point, we had been without a new record for two and a half years," he continues. "All of the momentum that we had built up with River Songs was gone. And we just said, 'Look, either release the record or release us.' And from that moment, it took about another three quarters of a year to actually get released from our deal." Down but not out, The Badlees continued to plug away independently until opportunity knocked in the form of ARK 21 Records, a small major label that offered to pick-pocket Up There Down Here from Universal's purse and release it nationally. "They put the record out there and just let it die a slow and painful death," Palladino laments. "We were getting opening slots on tours that we just couldn't take because they wouldn't give us any tour support whatsoever. We weren't arguing over, you know, $20,000 versus $30,000. We were arguing over zero dollars versus any tour support whatsoever."

Needless to say, things were going badlee (forgive me). "We all reacted to this differently," Palladino explains. "Your entire life was put on hold, because we couldn't release any independent records while we were still under contract, we couldn't tour because we didn't have a record out. So you feel like everything that you've worked so hard for is just becoming stagnant. And that leads to a bunch of frustration within the band, and management. I think we just needed to get the hell away from each other for a little while. And I'm really, really glad that we did."

And so The Badlees scattered throughout the lands, making music on individual terms and licking their wounds in the process. "Any band where you have five incredibly strong-willed people, you're constantly pulling for your ideas to be heard. And I think when there's no outlet for them to be heard, that also breeds frustration," Palladino says. "We didn't hate each other, we just had to work outside the confines of what The Badlees were."

Such was life for about a year and a half until, at the encouragement of the band's manager, Chris Fetchko, a longtime Badlees fan, the disjointed Badlees assembled to see if they could glue their Humpty Dumpty back together again. "[Chris] was really the catalyst. I think all of us were really enjoying our side projects," Palladino explains. "It wasn't until we actually sat down in the studio that we realized that, you know, there were great songs there, that we were getting along, that everybody had kind of grown up. We were talking, and I think Bret said it best, that we were able to take this break, and we realized that there were bigger enemies than each other. It's a good place to be right now."

Which brings us back to the future. "We were able to go out and return re-energized," says Palladino. "Now we're at the point where everybody knows that what each other does is really special, and we're giving each other the leeway to do that. And that was never there before, not as much as it is now." Following the release of Renew in June, The Badlees will launch a full assault regionally, this time on their own terms. "Being in and out of two major label deals, we didn't want to sit around and wait for that to come along again in order for us to do what we do," Palladino explains. "The whole goal of this was to put it out on our own and just exist regardless of what everybody else thinks. ... We're just learning how to circumvent every aspect of the major label world. So we'll see how we do.

"We want to stay regional, and do what comes. Anybody can hop in a van and tour the country, and wind up going broke very quickly. The romance of touring nationally is just not there for us," he continues. "So the plan is just start here and just see what happens. If radio latches on, and if there's a lot of interest from people in our circle, then we'll spread out as we see fit. But we'd like to get back that love that people have for what we do, and, you know, take over Pennsylvania again.

"That is our goal, to take it as far as we can take it by ourselves.