Stream: Rooney, ‘My Heart Beats 4 U’

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Rooney's Robert Schwartzman (Photo by Zoey Grossman)
Rooney's Robert Schwartzman (Photo by Zoey Grossman)

Rooney is back, although it’s not necessarily the “When Did Your Heart Go Missing?” Rooney you knew and loved back in the mid-Aughts. It’s more like “When did the band go missing?” Backed by a new lineup, frontman and songwriter Robert Schwartzman has re-booted the brand for the new album “Washed Away” (out May 6), the fourth Rooney full-length.

Rooney’s re-emergence comes after a five-year period during which Schwartzman released two solo albums, scored his niece Gia Coppola’s movie “Palo Alto,” worked on his own feature film “Dreamland,” composed music for TV, designed the 22 app, built his own studio (Beachwood Park Recording) and reached a settlement in a legal battle with his former bandmates. In late 2013, those bandmates — Taylor Locke, Ned Brower, Louis Stephens and Matthew Winter — sued Schwartzman alleging non-payment of publishing royalties promised in their original 2002 band agreement. The following March, Schwartzman counter-sued, accusing the foursome of breach of contract and “acts of indiscretion” — including locking Schwartzman out of the Rooney Facebook page, an action (by denying the frontman a chance to promote his solo work to the Rooney fanbase) for which he sought $3.6 million in damages. A settlement in suits was reached; they were dismissed last year.

For all that drama, Schwartzman’s ability to craft pop hooks seems unaffected on the blithely catchy “Washed Away,” a collection of love-obsessed nuggets that figures to soundtrack a lot of summers. The styles deftly segue from synth-spiked power-pop (the single “My Heart Beats 4 U”) to ’60s-style surf (“Come On Baby”) to a jaunty back-and-forth with French singer SoKo (“Why”) to sparkling Britpop-informed anthems (“You’re All I Ever Need”) to good ol’ soft-rock balladry (“Sad But True”). Rooney fans will be washed, if not blown, away.

||| Stream: The single here:

||| Also: Watch director Kevin Parker Flynn’s video for “My Heart Beats 4 U”

||| Live: Rooney headlines the Teragram Ballroom on May 6, joined by White Sea and Wild Wild Horses. Tickets.