Cheap Trick, "The Latest" ¿¿¿ (out of 4)

In September, Cheap Trick will perform the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" album backed by an orchestra during a string of shows in Las Vegas.

If that sounds absurd, guess again; the Rockford, Ill., quartet at its best is a heavier, harder-hitting Midwestern Fab Four: Robin Zander's a vocalist as versatile as Paul McCartney, John Lennon and George Harrison rolled into one, Bun E. Carlos is a thundering update of Ringo Starr, Tom Petersson is an ultra-melodic guitarist masquerading as a bassist in the McCartney mold, and Rick Nielsen is a strafe-and-stun guitarist who suggests what the Beatles might've sounded like with a six-string terrorist such as Jeff Beck or Pete Townshend in their lineup.

That's high praise, but when Cheap Trick is good, it is very, very good, a quartet that has essentially remained intact since its early '70s inception. The problem is it's maddeningly inconsistent on record. It's possible to write off the middle section of the band's career as an inept attempt to keep up with the MTV times by welcoming in outside songwriters and heavy-handed producers that diluted its mix of wicked wit and metallic pop.

But as independent artists, beginning with an unjustly overlooked 1997 self-titled release, the foursome has reclaimed its sound and legacy with a series of fine releases. "The Latest" (Cheap Trick Unlimited) is the best of that recent bunch, with producer Julian Raymond adding just a spritz of orchestration to a series of songs that balance the ornate and the violent, a pop album equally audacious and inviting. The band shows its range from the outset, with Zander's glorious vocal intro, a ripping cover of Slade's glam-rock gem "When the Lights Are Out," an opulent psychedelic pop ballad ("Miss Tomorrow") and then the fist-in-face "Sick Man of Europe," with Petersson's predatory bass leading the way.

The rest isn't quite so riveting. The closing ballad, "Smile," smacks of the band's wayward '80s, and some of the rockers are a bit bar-band rote. But it's great to hear Carlos' cymbal work drive "Alive" in between bursts of Nielsen guitar, and "Times of Our Lives" is one of those kaleidoscope arrangements that -- like Cheap Trick itself -- just keeps spinning out new colors.