It was only a matter of time before a big-league alternative band declared itself beyond hip. That Live are the first will come as no surprise to the millions of fans who swear by the Pennsylvania quartet with perhaps the most unpromising name in the history of rock.

This means that when Ed Kowalczyk, Live's charismatic lead singer, introduces Secret Samadhi's opener, "Rattlesnake," with the line "Let's go hang out in a mall," he's being neither ironic nor glib. He's serious. Admit it – it's kind of fun to go to a mall, right? It so happens that Live regard middlebrow America as a pretty OK place, certainly one they don't take for granted, or as Kowalczyk puts it in the same song, "In another place, in another time/I'd be driving trucks, my dear."

Mental Jewelry, Live's 1991 album debut, indulged their adolescent brand of Kmart mysticism; by 1994's Throwing Copper, the band had traded its Far East canoodling for a more catholic spirituality and an expanded musical dynamic. And while Secret Samadhi weathers its own share of awkward schoolboy poetry ("Century") and ill-conceived arrangements (save the string section for the fifth album, guys), the band sounds stronger than ever.

Live have gained an early reputation for tackling the "big issues" (birth, death, love), and Secret Samadhi delivers, but with a difference. In the course of the album's 12 tracks, Live contemplate social responsibility ("Merica"), the intrinsic value of art ("Graze") and tabloid TV ("Freaks"). And yet for all the band's aural bombast, the tone is never judgmental.

It's as if all those critics who pegged Live as R.E.M. Lite emboldened the band to embrace its blithe accessibility. Guitarist Chad Taylor is no virtuoso, but he more than compensates on songs like "Lakini's Juice" and "Heropsychodreamer" with inventive fuzz-tone effects. Bassist Patrick Dalheimer and drummer Chad Gracey help create a spare, cavernous sonic environment that should translate well in arenas.

The message of Secret Samadhi is clear: Live are on a quest for new spirituality. As 20-year-olds, they lacked an identity; now in their mid-20s, they exude a rootless sincerity fueled by genuine passion. If all this means that guitar rock isn't going to be cool anymore, then so be it. And if Live become the new U2, who's to say alternative has no future? (RS 757)

ALEC FOEGE