Unveiling their latest Trick

Only Cheap Trick would dare start a power pop record with a sugary sweet anthem about the inherent superiority of women.

"A man can't do what a woman can do," Robin Zander sings, amid buzzing guitars and soaring yeah-yeah-yeahs that make the listener want to scream, "Hello Wisconsin!"

The song, "Scent of a Woman," marks the return of Cheap Trick. The band, now in its 29th year, has just released "Special One" - their first batch of new material since 1997.

It's been more than two decades since Cheap Trick was in vogue, but they've never gone away. A constant touring act, the band's absurdist pop won a legion of loyal fans, as well as indie-cool cachet from the likes of Kurt Cobain.

In a recent phone interview, Zander says the band - nerd-supreme guitarist Rick Nielsen, blue-collar drummer Bun E. Carlos, and bassist Tom Petersson, who, like Zander, actually looks like a rock star - had no choice but to stay together as their popularity went up and down over the years.

"It's all we know," Zander says. "We don't have a backup plan. It's just like when we were kids. We don't want to do anything else."

Inspired by early American rock 'n' roll and the British Invasion, Cheap Trick has specialized in guitar-driven songs tinged with off-kilter sentiments. Thus the hallucinatory paranoia of "Dream Police," the parents-as-kids, kids-as-parents anthem "Surrender," and the serendipitous pairing of Fats Domino and amped-up guitar licks in"Ain't That a Shame," the band's raucous concert staple.

Cheap Trick's combination of goofy sensibilities (Nielsen's knowing winks at rock stardom included tossing picks into the crowd while playing a five-necked guitar) and crisp songwriting gave the band a glorious run during the late-'70s.

Their fourth album, the concert gem "At Budokan," became so popular that, like Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven," it's since become the hoariest of rock clichés. "I Want You to Want Me" can be hummed by just about anyone on the planet.

But the band lost its way during the '80s. The arrival of hair-metal inspired a full-fledged power ballad, "The Flame." Crass and blatant? Without doubt. Stuck in your head throughout the summer of 1988? Also without doubt. "The Flame" gave the band its first No. 1 single, but the short-lived resurgence faded.

In 1997, Cheap Trick put out a new album that sold a mere 60,000 copies. Released on Red Ant Records (the band members now dub it Dead Ant), it suffered when the label foundered almost as soon as the record hit stores.

For the past six years, the band has subsisted on touring and the occasional live compilation, releasing discs under their own imprint.

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