FRESH RANCID: Driving out to work this morning I came across a disc I bought a couple months ago. I've got a six-disc changer in the trunk, and sometimes when I'm shoving new discs in I drop the old ones down into the well where the changer resides. Anyway, that's where I found Rancid's latest, the aptly titled INDESTRUCTIBLE. It was, of course, intact, and so I put it into rotation.

I stumbled across Rancid back in '94 when I heard their anthemic single "Salvation." Man, this sounds like the Clash, I remember thinking. Now let's find out if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

The more I listened -- buying LET'S GO, going back into the catalog and discovering their Operation Ivy roots -- the more I liked them. Sure, they sounded a lot like the Clash, and yet they were clearly doing their own thing. They were extending the musical legacy of one of my favorite bands, drawing inspiration from them and injecting that band's energy and commitment into something entirely new. When AND OUT CAME THE WOLVES dropped a year later, I was simply in awe. A varied collection of hard-rocking, punkish anthems, the record just kicked the poopie out of anything else released in 1995. While teenyboppers and radio programmers seemed to prefer the more cartoonish Offspring, I saw them as Jay Leno to Rancid's David Letterman. No contest. One cuddly and innocuous, the other lovably insouciant. Seeing them live on a double bill made it even more obvious: Rancid were the real deal, a genuine rock band with chops and attitude, a band good enough to take over the world if they could just hold it together. (And the Offspring were a novelty act, Weird Al gone punk.)

Nearly a decade later, Rancid remains on the fringes of success, largely owing to two interesting yet aggresively noncommercial releases in a row. In a way, I admire their commitment to their art, to exploration and punk rock and damn-the-dollars record-making. That said, I was happy to tune into INDESTRUCTIBLE -- and to reconnect with it this morning -- and discover the signs of a maturing band, a band ready to once again earn the ears of a wider listenership. On "Fall Back Down," Armstrong retraces his rebirth after a bumpy divorce, saluting his bandmates for their unwavering support. On "Tropical London," he staggers his way from self-doubt to confidence, his trademark slurry snarl pronouncing the Stuart Smalley-like affirmation: "If you lose me girl, you lose a good thing/That's one thing I know for sure."

And that's pretty much how I feel about my relationship with the band, like I'd lost 'em for a few years and in so doing, had lost something special. If you're in the market for a solid punk rock album, you could do worse than picking up INDESTRUCTIBLE. It's like going on a first date with your ex-girlfriend again. You know each other's moves, but that's not such a bad thing. Pick it up and tell me what you think.