NEW YORK -- At long last, Swervedriver are back on the road and wheeling out a new album.

But it hasn't been an easy ride.

Like their rock peers in The Verve, Pavement and the Jesus and Mary Chain, Swervedriver have a corps of fans who eagerly await each new recording. But unlike most of those other bands, Swervedriver have had trouble just getting their music distributed, including their latest offing, 99th Dream -- their first U.S. release in five years.

"The album was recorded, it was about to go out, and we got dropped," singer/guitarist Adam Franklin said about Swervedriver being released by Geffen last April, shortly before their first album with the label was to hit store shelves. "So there was lots of wheeling and dealing, trying to sort out a new deal. We managed to hold onto the album. But by the time we put it out, it was over a year old."

The first single from the February release, also called "99th Dream," leads off the LP, an album that is packed with odes to psychedelia and mesmerizing sonic displays that draw heavily from its post-punk past. The thirtysomething bandmembers said that the title is a kind of "prequel" to Bob Dylan's "115th Dream" from the folk-rocker's 1965 album Bringing It All Back Home. And while the group plans to release three singles off the new record on Zero Hour, guitarist Jim Hartridge said the focus in 1998 will be on touring. "We want to get on the road and get tight again," he said, adding that it will be a welcome relief from the hassles of the past year.

Speaking prior to a recent gig at the Mercury Lounge before heading home to London, the bandmembers talked about the recent release of their fourth album and their current tour opening for the post-pop band Hum.

Prior to the new label deals, about all that American fans heard from Swervedriver after the Geffen debacle was news of a summer mini-tour that took them through Boston, New York and Philadelphia. There hadn't been any significant new domestic releases since 1993's Mezcal Head.

As a result, instead of touring last year to support the album or recording new material, their energy was diverted into searching for a label, Franklin said.

Explaining the label's decision to drop the band, Geffen media relations director Dennis Dennehy said when the person who signed them left the label, Swervedriver were handed back their album. "A&R people are product managers, too," he said. "And they have to have a passion about the band. No product manager plus no passion equals no release."

It wasn't the first time that Swervedriver have been let go. Their third album, Ejector Seat Reservation, was issued in the U.K. by Creation Records in August 1995, just as Swervedriver were being dropped by that label. As a result, there was no promotion, no touring and no U.S. release.

When Geffen dropped the band, Swervedriver took the 99th Dream master with them, rather than risk another half-hearted release on an indifferent label, Franklin said. Nonetheless, the band has since managed to cobble together new label deals for the U.S. (Zero Hour Records), the U.K. (Sonic Wave Discs) and Australia (Shock Records).

Ajay Sharma, who owns a commercially released copy of 99th Dream and who posted an early sampling of the album on the Web, said the LP has a lot of the "swirly guitars" that he liked so much on earlier albums such as Raise, Swervedriver's first release. "I think 99th Dream is the album that Swervedriver wanted Ejector Seat Reservation to be," he said. "It's in the same style. It doesn't downplay that awesome power that Swervedriver has. I can't wait to hear the stuff that they are writing now."

Gil Durante, who saw Swervedriver perform in Boston, said "Behind the Scenes of the Sounds & The Times" was a live standout, along with the title track. His other favorites were "Never Lose That Feeling," a tune off Mezcal Head, and "Rave Down," off Raise. Still, of all the tunes on the new album, the next single, "Wrong Treats," perhaps is the most catchy, he added.

With its swerving and driving guitars, a relentless beat and Franklin's cryptic vocals, it hypnotizes as it hooks its listener, Durante explained, noting that the band's live shows are its greatest advertisement.

By lucky coincidence, Todd Cronin, who does radio marketing for Zero Hour Records and who helped Swervedriver find their new label, caught the band at a recent Tramps performance in New York. Fiona Bloom, director of A&R at Zero Hour, said Cronin came into the office the next day with glowing reports of the gig and Swervedriver's label-less plight. "He asked Ray [McKenzie, president of the label] if there was a chance in hell that we could get this band," she said. "We absolutely, genuinely and enthusiastically worship them."