If you were a member of Scarce, you might think twice about releasing an album called Deadsexy (out July 30 on A&M). Especially if you were singer/guitarist Chick Graning, who very nearly became hot, sexy, and well, dead.

"We had to leave the title," Graning said last week from his home in Providence. "It was just too funny, and too good to pass up." Graning sounds remarkably well-balanced when you consider he quite literally had a mind-blowing experience last year at this time. He collapsed on the way to rehearsal last June and woke up in Providence Hospital 18 days later, having suffered a brain hemorrhage caused by an arterial venous malformation. In such a situation, waking up again after that long a coma is almost unheard of.

"It's the shit, huh?" he says with characteristic understatement. "I knew that something was up when I woke up and I saw my parents in the same room together for the first time since 1975. Then I had breakfast; I remember that it was French toast. I didn't know if I'd been eaten by a whale or something at that point; I thought I'd fallen out of a car and hit my head on the sidewalk. Then I heard people telling me I'd had an AVM, whatever the hell that was." It was another two months before he could leave the hospital. "Reading was useless at that point; all you can do is basically exist after a while. It was another month before I could get my hands on a pack of cigarettes, and that was when I started feeling normal -- hate to say it, but that's true."

Playing guitar was also a help, Graning says: "I could still do that, even when I couldn't do anything else." Bandmate Joyce Raskin (bass/vocals) kept the band going by playing acoustic gigs in his absence (with proceeds going toward hospital bills), and Scarce had a low-key tour booked shortly after his release from the hospital. So it wasn't the kind of life-changing experience that caused him to re-evaluate everything he does? "Yeah, sure it was. But I figured that I wouldn't have gotten this far into music if I didn't want to do it in the first place. What was I gonna do, quit right in the middle? It changes your perspective, but you have to get back to where you were. You can't go and become a monk or some shit."

It would be easy to get sentimental here and declare Deadsexy a great album; but in truth it's a promising disc by a sometimes-great live band still finding their footing in the studio. I happened to see Scarce two years ago on one of those nights when everything clicked, and that gig (played to a small weeknight crowd at the Middle East) was so good that I've been comparing them against it ever since. Between the blare of Graning's guitar and the rough passion of his singing, the punk-pop velocity of the material and Raskin's shining harmonies and kinetic stage presence (this was when she still had to glue foam rubber against the underside of her bass because she slammed into it so much), it was a show that left me happily drained. They've approached that peak at gigs I've seen since; but their various demos and singles never quite caught it.

Deadsexy does catch it, but not until the album's tail end: "Salvador Sammy" is two minutes' worth of what I remember hearing at the Middle East -- a blur of defiant exuberance. "Sense of Quickness" is a nice slow grind that builds to a haunting coda sung by Raskin (who gets more chances to sing on disc than she usually does on stage). And "Obviously Midnight" pulls off a more ambitious, acoustic sound. Song quality is generally solid elsewhere, but the production sounds a little reined in and the performances don't achieve the wild abandon of a good night. The opening "Honeysimple" is the most commercial track, sounding as if it were trying to be a happier Nirvana (succeeding, too). The only one that flat-out doesn't work is "All Sideways," with an unlikely mix of Skynyrd guitars and falsetto shrieks that bring Sparks to mind.

The current release of Deadsexy is more like two albums rolled into one. Six of the 12 tracks come from the original version of the album, produced by Kevin Salem and Graning, that would have come out last year if fate hadn't intervened. (This version was released in Europe and was scheduled to come out in America the week Graning collapsed.) After his recovery, the band rethought the album and dumped four of the original tracks, adding six more that were recorded with new producer Michael Barbiero this year.

You'd expect to find a contrast between the sound of the old and new tracks, but there's almost none, even though Graning says Salem could be maddeningly precise in the studio ("He had us laying the guitars down 50 or 60 times") whereas Barbiero's tracks were basically live. The two sessions also featured different drummers in what's become a revolving-door position. Scarce were already on their third, Mike Levesque, when the earlier tracks were recorded. Current drummer (#4) Joseph Propatier plays on the new ones. Graning admits that most of Propatier's predecessors were fired but won't go into specifics. "They were asked to leave, for the most part. Aside from that, ask Spinal Tap."

If the album shows Scarce headed for a more textured approach, Graning promises that "we've evolved a little bit since then; I think we're getting back to the thrash stage." Look for that sound when they play T.T. the Bear's Place this Saturday (the 13th), even if the definitive Scarce album is yet to be made. The good news is that Chick Graning's still around to make it.

GALAXIE BOXED

In truth, Galaxie didn't do badly, drawing a following that stretched beyond Boston. Four years after their break-up, that following was still strong enough to convince Rykodisc that a Galaxie 500 boxed set would turn a profit. "There's been demand from the fans and from retail," says Ryko's Andrea Troolin. "People who get into Luna and into Damon & Naomi want to work backwards and can't find anything, so there's a tremendous mystique behind the band." All three of Galaxie's out-of-print albums -- On Fire, Now, and This Is Our Music -- have been remastered by producer Kramer for the set. The fourth disc will include B-sides, demos, and one live track (the Modern Lovers cover "Don't Let Our Youth Go to Waste"). In addition, all four discs will have CD-ROM visuals, including each of Galaxie's videos.

However, the still-estranged band members don't plan to play any reunion dates to support the release.

RUBIN REBOUNDS

COMING UP

A terrific punk/pop bill at the Rat Saturday, with Mung, Minneapolis rockers the Magnolias, the Nines, and Lizzie Borden's Finch Family. Quintaine Americana have a CD-release party at the Middle East with a big batch o' bands (Grind, Otis, Honkyball, and the out-of-place Mistle Thrush). Rounder's latest blues-rockers, the Love Dogs, play the Tam, and Buffalo Tom's Bill Janovitz is at the Paradise . . . Polvo are at the Middle East Sunday . . . The fine political/folk band Disappear Fear are at Mama Kin on Tuesday . . . And the wonderfully eccentric Sparklehorse are alive and well at the Middle East Wednesday, while J. Geils and Magic Dick bring Bluestime to the House of Blues.