The first bleats of official, finished, no-joking-this-time music from Hanson have arrived. How long has it been? Ten years? Twelve? I've lost count. This time is especially sweet, because the drought has been long and hard, and you are so parched. First thing's first: I'm glad you're still here. Hanson's even gladder, I'm sure. But I'm really glad. Thank you. Thank Hanson. Thank God. Thank everybody.

Now, about that music. Get ready. Because new Hanson music is here, and it is pissed off. It is moody and sick with sadness. It's paranoid. Angry. Coked-up. Depraved. Alienated. Cynical. Bored. It is, in short, the same Hanson as always, with its sweet melodic surface barely concealing an inner core that's pretty black and confused for a bunch of doe-eyed evangelical kids from Tulsa. It's unfortunate that the critics don't get it. Hanson has never made "happy" music. Mmmbop is about death, after all. In that sense, the five new songs on the Hanson.net membership CD aren't a thematic departure. But if we're talking about the specifics of Hanson's newfound grownup angst, we'll keep it at this: That ship left Albertane a long, long time ago.

Now, soft-treading juvenile moodiness has given way to something bigger and inevitably more dangerous. That is to say, it's better. It's also as unblinking as anything Hanson's ever done. In the new Hansonland, "nicotine" rhymes with "kerosene" and this time around, the lyrics don't have the tentative third-person ring of an imagined experience instead of a real one, a la "Sure About It." The girls in these songs aren't just unattainable. They're dead, humiliated, and high, and the boys aren't doing much better.

With one grand exception, these songs are throwaways. They're noble, quality throwaways to be sure, but listening to them, it's good to remember that this is not the album, and that the best is yet to be heard.

The exception is the cheery/miserable "End of the Line," which finds its young heroine mired in post-prom regret and bitterness, which sounds cliché until you hear Taylor Hanson lament her discarded dress and her fantasies of torching the town on her way out of it. Throw in a drug reference or four, a taut lead vocal from Taylor that sounds like it was channeled through the dolphin tank at Sea World, a chorus that gleams as brightly as "Where's the Love?" in its best moments, and a quiet, persistent humanity, and you have a pretty complete picture of the very new, very complicated Hanson. True to form, it is the most thematically brutal and completely hummable song on the disk. It also accomplishes something that seemed nearly impossible: It bridges the musical gap between the old and the new Hanson in amazing ways. Who could have predicted that Ike's guitar playing, Taylor's searing vocals, and even Zac's signature (Who knew?) drumming, without super-sonic production, would sound so remarkably like... well... Hanson? It is nice—wonderful even—to have the boys back in town. If that's going to be the ultimate result of Hanson's efforts to self-produce, then by all means. Invite the boys in, and let them put their feet on the coffee table.

"Down" is about being that way, and besides its gentle waltz tempo, is notable for a blistering ten bars or so of Zac vocals that come and go far too quickly. Airy and sad, and containing a nice burst of a bridge section, it's the sort of restrained, mature stuff that more than proves Hanson's mettle, but somehow falls short of album-worthiness.

"Rock and Roll Razorblade" channels The Strokes and Aerosmith in its tale of jittery California disappointment. We're not entirely sure what's going on in this song, but we think it has something to do with a disillusioned someone called "Rockerball," which we never would have figured out without the help of the printed lyrics included on the disk. Thank Taylor Hanson—who continues to be one of the most frustratingly inarticulate vocalists in pop history—for that. At least we know now it's not his retainer. He alternately swallows or whispers so many consonants that it's remarkable that people—you know, non-fans—have figured out that English is his first language. We can only imagine the creative lyrical guesses that would have shown up on various web pages, this one included, had there not been lyrics included. (Rockerboy... Rock-a-bye... Rickaboom...) It is, true to the wheezy demo clip we all heard months ago on Hanson.net, a neat little three-minute rocker and not much else. It's a lot of fun to dance around your bedroom to, but it's not one I'd want on the desk of a Rolling Stone editor any time soon.

Toss away your fuzzy, ear-splitting MP3 of "Beautiful Eyes - Live in Brazil!" because here it is in official form. The song is, of course, about the dead girl and the baby. Or, maybe she's not dead. The song never specifies. She could be merely gone. Like Jonny. Ike puts in one of his best studio vocal performances ever here. He sings with such sensitivity and confidence that it's hard to imagine that he was ever Hanson's token teenage awkwardboy. Simple and sad, "Beautiful Eyes" is one of this disc's more distinct accomplishments. "Next Train" the another Isaac ode to unhappy, and proves to be one of the disc's more lackluster entries, despite a nice enough melody and another fine vocal performance from Isaac.

Hidden Track:

Then there's the hidden track. Please don't e-mail me asking how to access it, because a) I'm sure I don't remember, and b) I'm trying to block out the whole experience. We'll tactfully refrain from making any sly comments about anyone's relationship with anyone's significant other, but we will say this: For those of you who were worrying that Ike had lost some of his charming dorkish qualities to time and maturity, rest easy.

• If "Where's the love?" is the ultimate Hanson rhetorical question, then "Who's the bass player?" is surely a close second. So who is it, guys? Fess up. The not-so-subtle insinuation is that if your name wasn't Hanson, you didn't play on any of these songs. But somebody's playing bass, and not too disastrously at that. We've seen that one wayward picture of Isaac playing a Fender bass, but that's no proof. And the list of Hanson mysteries grows.
• What happened to MOE Records? Wait. Did that ever actually exist, or is that an act of fanfiction or speculation, like so much else floating around this tenuous little universe? We like the homespun feel of 3CG, although we despise the addition—or the repositioning, pardon us—of more stupid Hanson acronyms to the fan lingo, thanks. Like there weren't enough already, Mr. and Mrs. TTMON, TTA, WYIYD, IWCTY.
• There is something entrancing about the lyric, "Maybe it's just a reflection of what's on your mind." It feels like a tease, like Taylor is daring you to attach your own scary demons to a song that already has plenty of its own. As if to say, "You're the one with the issues, Miss Hanson Fan, so get off my silky smooth, yet drug-addled back."
• Raise your hand if you were one of those sick, writerly Hanson fans who nearly died of joy over the internal rhyme scheme in the line, "She's breathin' in some nicotine. And when she's down, she'll drown this town in kerosene." Yeah. That's what I figured.

Hanson music keeps us happy. Hanson antics with our music keep us twice as happy. The Hanson.net member CD is chock-full of them. They are surely of a new, more purposeful variety, but they are no less enjoyable than Walker Hanson's wobbly oldschool home videos of the boys picking their noses and tying their shoes. These antics also happen to be inter-dispersed with some of the most tantalizing, best-sounding music we've ever heard out of Hanson. Some thoughts:

• Zac still has a really low hairline.
• The single best part of the enhanced portion of the CD is getting to hear those precious few moments of the completed "Crazy Beautiful" playing in the background as Hanson prattles on about the web site, and how much they appreciate us and our precious loyalty, blah blah. I wanted to be like, shut up Taylor so I can hear the song, damnit.
• There is proof, alas, that Zac plays the piano. More important is the song he's playing, which sports a beautiful would-be melody. "Broken Angel" is it? We hope it doesn't get stuffed on the B-side somewhere like a wayward, under-appreciated George Song.
• When Ike is laughing. And laughing and laughing. And you can't do anything except laugh with him, because it's infections. What? Hello? We're talking about Ike here, whose cheeseball har dee har has marred many a televised Hanson interview. This laugh, though, is so different, like it was born on a whole different planet. It's a revelation—a glipse, once and for all, at Ike's real laugh.
• There's this moment. Taylor is sitting at piano discussing "Underneath," and he looks luminous and perfect, and simultaneously like he just fell down a flight of stairs. We think that's the secret of his charm, really.
• We've been in this drought so long, even Taylor's stubby-fingered mitts are starting to look kind of sexy.
• No jokes about the baby monitor. Not one.