TWO years ago, the Vines' drummer, Hamish Rosser, was on tour with the band in Brisbane when he got talking to Fabrizio Moretti, drummer from the Strokes. "And Fab said to me: 'You know, wasn't it so great to have been a part of something!' "

Moretti was referring to the low-fi, high-intensity, garage rock revival - "that whole musical movement", as Rosser describes it - that was then being led by bands such as the Strokes and the Vines.

"It was reassuring to hear that, like, we actually did something," Rosser says. "But then a part of me got really depressed when I realised that Fab was speaking in the past tense. I thought, wow, I guess that was that, then."

Except that it wasn't. The once all-conquering Vines are back with Melodia, a rich and raw record that reprises their signature buzz-saw intensity with a certain sweetness and light - from the sugary warmth of Orange Amber to the melancholy of True As The Night.

"I don't think I've ever heard Craig [Nicholls, lead singer] sing anything as personal as on this record," Rosser says. "There are actually love songs on Melodia, like A Girl I Knew, about a very painful break-up he went through four years ago, and a song called Kara Jane, which is about his new girlfriend."

Given what the band has been through, it's remarkable they're even still together, let alone releasing their fourth LP. Certainly, the party seemed over in 2004, following Nicholls's very public meltdown at a gig at the Annandale Hotel, during which he abused the crowd - "You're all a bunch of sheep," he screamed, "can you go baa?" - before kicking a photographer and abandoning the stage. Triple M, which had sponsored the show, banned Vines songs from the station forever and Nicholls faced assault charges.

Once described by The Guardian as a "prodigious and ostentatious marijuana smoker who survives on a burger-only diet", the 31-year-old Nicholls has always been a handful for the band, famous for trashing the sets of both The David Letterman Show and The Tonight Show With Jay Leno.

But it was his performance during an interview with NME in Britain that perhaps proved most damaging. Nicholls reportedly attempted to smash the journalist's tape recorder before locking himself in the bathroom for 90 minutes.

"Yes, well, that wasn't great," Rosser concedes. "It kind of tripped up the momentum we had been developing. I certainly knew that Craig had the ability to write great songs but his ability to promote and function in normal society was questionable."

Four years later and Nicholls is still touch and go. Diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, a mild type of autism, he still finds touring "stressful", Rosser says.

"He just gets totally freaked out by changes in his environment."

But musically, at least, the band has emerged better than ever from the turmoil, Rosser says.

"The accolades are great when they're coming but they can't be heaped on you forever.

"Now that that part of our development is over, we are actually a better band. We're certainly more experienced than we were and our live shows are better than they were."

A second flowering of the Vines, then? "Hopefully, yeah."

THE VINES

Saturday (sold out) and Sunday, 8pm, Metro Theatre, city, 9550 3666, $38.50.