Blind Melon

It's absolutely fitting that in a three-minute promotional clip running on Blind Melon's MySpace page, new singer Travis Warren is wearing a Layne Staley memorial T-shirt as he talks about joining the band last year. One has to wonder if the early-2006 (and moderately successful) re-formation of Alice in Chains, with vocalist William DuVall replacing the late Staley, provided the model for Blind Melon's re-emergence — more than a decade after the overdose death of singer Shannon Hoon essentially ended the band — with Warren front and center. Still beloved for their upbeat, grunge-era, hippie-rock anthem "No Rain" and its accompanying, iconic "Bee Girl" video, the quintet must figure it's worth starting things up again, knowing that the power of nostalgia will probably carry them through at least one national tour. Yes, Warren sounds uncannily like Hoon, and, yes, the band is putting the wraps on another album, due in 2008. Obviously, everyone in the crowd will be there to hear "No Rain" and maybe "Tones of Home," but there will be plenty of fresh material to herald Blind Melon's second coming.