The Darkness playing House of Blues

He was prescience in a spandex unitard.

"I always used to say to our accountant, 'We did a brilliant first album. We'll do an OK second album. We'll split up, and then we'll do an amazing reunion,' " recalls Justin Hawkins, frontman for leering Brit pop metal hair balls The Darkness. "She reminded me of that recently. It was like, 'Wow, you're kidding?' "

"Wow, you're kidding?" -- that's how a lot of folks reacted to the emergence of The Darkness close to a decade ago, with their screaming double entendres, Hawkins' Freddie Mercury-worthy stage get-ups and the band's tongue-in-cheek take on tight-trousered hard rock.

But after strutting to the top of the charts with falsetto-fired hits such as "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" and "Get Your Hands Off My Woman" from their 2003 debut, "Permission to Land," Hawkins struggled with substance abuse issues, the band's sophomore album, "One Way Ticket to Hell ... And Back," underwhelmed, and the group splintered.

"On the second (album), we had less time to write stuff and we thought, 'OK, what is it that people want us to do?' " Hawkins says, speaking on a conference call with journalists. "We tried to second-guess what our audience actually wanted from us, and I think we got it wrong. I suppose they just want to hear us having a good time again, you know?"

And so that's what the band is aiming for on their forthcoming third disc, due out later in the year.

In the meantime, they're back on the road, revisiting old friends and making new ones.

Sounds a lot like that thing called love.

"We're finding out that there's an underswell of warmth towards us," Hawkins says. "We feel like we're the underdogs again, and that makes us hungry and it makes us want to fight for it. It's exciting, actually. It's like the first time around, you know, all over again."

Contact reporter Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476.