Whether you love 'er or loathe 'er, when Natalie Merchant deserted her fellow Maniacs in the summer of '93, many fans wondered if the band's jilted remainders -- all middle-aged men, all without vocal skills, all better suited physically for jobs in accounting -- would bother staying together. With Merchant as the enigmatic dervish letting loose peerless alto vocals, the band was an irresistibly sexy model of flirty female domination. Without her, however, these four guys couldn't turn heads in a 7-Eleven.

But then along came Mary -- Ramsey, that is -- a shy but cheerful waif who played violin and viola, not to mention backed up Miss M on "Our Time in Eden" and "MTV Unplugged," the band's two final offerings before the split. Founding Maniac John Lombardo also re-enlisted with the troops, adding early-'80s energies long since vanished. And instead of retooling the sound, renaming the group or scrapping the outfit altogether, the chins-up Maniacs have forged ahead, garnering a new label and recording a new album.

At D.C.'s 9:30 Club to promote "Love Among the Ruins" (due in May), the Maniacs didn't swarm the stage until 'round midnight, leaving many in the solid (but not sold out) crowd speculating how Ramsey would handle the hellish assignment of replacing the lost lush voice. In fact, as she nervously warbled the first few lines of the opening "Even With My Eyes Closed," Ramsey sounded more like a K-Mart Merchant than a new beginning.

But the band, as clean and tight as ever, faithfully played on, allowing Ramsey to eventually find her voice. By the time she tackled the first fave from yesteryear, "What's the Matter Here?," the painful comparisons to Merchant were all but hushed. (O.K., just one more and we'll let her off the hook: Ramsey's stage presence revolves around a fidgety, two-step shuffle, something a lonely girl at a high school dance might try in a darkened corner of the gym. Natalie's lost-in-herself, hair-flyin' sway is certainly missed -- well, at least by me.)

While the young audience responded favorably to the fresh material (maybe because a handful of teenage fans were brought onstage to sit and dance on a ratty, fan-friendly couch), crowd response was most heartfelt during the final few songs of the first set: "Candy Everybody Wants," "Hey Jack Kerouac," and, amazingly enough, "These Are Days," a signature Merchant tune that Ramsey thoroughly embraced and brought to life.

Except for "Planned Obsolescence," on which guitarist Robert Buck tore off a blistering solo, the second set was comprised of covers, including Roseanne Cash's "Seven Year Ache" and Roxy Music's "More Than This." For an impromptu finale, the band strayed from the set list and succumbed to relentless shouts for "My Mother the War." With a what-the-fuck shrug, Lombardo summoned a few of the boys back onstage and, while looking a bit confused but smiling the whole way, the band fumbled through into a driving take on the Maniacs classic. Ramsey, unsure of the words, kept mostly to her violin, while