Is that really Oxford, England's Swervedriver, touring with Hum to support their buzzing new 99th Dream? It's miraculous these Lazaruses still walk the British earth, let alone our stages. Nine lives? They've used a bunch.

First there was the fiasco of 1995's fantastic Ejector Seat Reservation. Missed it? You're not out of the loop; the album wasn't released in the U.S. Then in 1997, new label Geffen dropped them before releasing a single LP. The group had finished 99th Dream, yet the deal was snuffed out like a wet cigar in a thunderstorm.

So it was surprising when Swervedriver played New York's Tramps July 16, seeking yet another contract. But the band kicked ass, and a bidding war ensued. Zero Hour won, and bought out 99th Dream. Back in business!

Good thing, too. Swervedriver builds a wall-of-sound as dense as the My Bloody Valentine scene they emerged from, but with a punishing edge and melodic thrust derived from the Stooges, Velvet Underground, Clash, and '60s Who.

At Tramps, they fired on all cylinders, with determination and teeth-gritted ferocity, like desperate, starving mountain lions tearing at a goat, as frightening and momentous as a Six Flags' Viper ride.

"Oh yeah!" enthuses drummer Jez. "That was cathartic. It goes through your mind, is there a hint we should be taking, should we give up? So after all the sh**, to come here and have so many feed us encouragement, it meant that much..."

"That, and as we were going on, our manager said 'you're playing for your lives, boys!'"

Yikes. "All we need is a shot," he sighs. "We've never built up momentum. Like on A&M, we'd come out with an album, and then it's, 'oh, Sting's releasing an LP, let's all work on that.'"

And Swervedriver's been diddled by three bigger boys, so why not try smaller Zero Hour? Moreover, 99th Dream will surprise those who haven't heard them since Mescal Head, when Mr. Bush was president, and Monica Lewinsky was in Beverly Hills High with Jed Clampett's grandchildren. "I think the songs on 99th Dream are more immediate," Jez agrees.

He's relieved it's even out, given that Ejector Seat disappeared like a Chilean political activist. "It's heartbreaking when people say they paid $30 here for it. It was (English label) Creation's fault. Noel Gallagher said, 'We have been bankrolling all these sad indie bands,' and we thought, 'Who was bankrolling you, mate?' Creation was bankrupt. They were taking Primal Scream's money and giving it to us, and giving ours to Oasis. So they kept our money they got from A&M rather than promoting us!"

We've hit an open vein. "That LP was beautifully made. It's your most personal outpourings put on tape, the relationships between us four, the craft, the strings arrangement, the number of bottles of wine and ounces of cocaine, it's all there. And you hand it over and the guy goes, 'nice one, uh, next....' It makes you feel impotent."

Geffen stepped in, but then fired the woman who signed them, so Swervedriver asked out. Such setbacks extinguish most groups. "Everyone expected us to quit," Jez shrugs. "We all thought, 'hang on, this is it.' But we just coming back back stronger."

"We played in Sydney, it's sold out 14,000 miles away, and everybody knows the words! I was thinking, 'this is a f***ing serious band...Hey!...I'm in it'!"

"So 'How many knocks can we take?' Well they can f***ing keep on trying to knock us down, we're not finished yet!"

Or, as Boo Radleys and Dodgy (who practice next to them in London) said, "That's Swervedriver, they won't shut down until the sun comes up and the dope smoke clears."

JACK RABID