Like it or not, trip-hop is back. Some might argue that the 1990s-born form—noted for its spacy atmospheres and mix of urban and soundtrack influences—never really went away, but with this year’s release of comeback albums by three of its flagship artists (Massive Attack, Portishead, and Morcheeba), it’s hard not to conclude that there’s a serious revival afoot. First out of the gate is Morcheeba, perhaps the most influential of those acts but also the most anonymous. Where Massive Attack exuded raw premillennial tension, and Portishead went for noirish theatricality, Morcheeba was always the amiable counterpoint, a precursor to the smooth cosmopolitanism of latter-day acts like Thievery Corporation and Zero 7.

Dive Deep, the band’s sixth album, marks a return to form for Morcheeba, which, after the breakout success of 1998’s Big Calm, became less a trip-hop group than a neo-folk outfit, trading in the urban influences of its earlier efforts for a more pastoral sound. Right from the opening seconds of the new LP’s first single, “Enjoy the Ride”—marked by viscous bass line and turntablist accents—Morcheeba producers and siblings Paul and Ross Godfrey give the impression of musicians coming full circle, and happily so.

“I think we’ve finally made peace with our reputation,” says younger brother Ross, reached on tour in Philadelphia. “No one really likes being put into a box. Our first record [1996’s Who Can You Trust?] was very much a trip-hop record, and then we made Big Calm and I think the songwriting on that transcended any genre. After that, we were very keen to become known as people that make good records, regardless of genre. But it’s been nice delving into past influences with Dive Deep.”

As chic and composed as the record sounds, it arrives at the tail end of a difficult period for the Godfrey brothers, both of whom struggled with drug dependence and depression during the middle part of this decade. There’s a blackly comic undercurrent to songs like “Enjoy the Ride” and “The Ledge Beyond the Edge”, which draw their titles and presiding sentiments from the late Bill Hicks, a brilliant American standup comic who often lampooned the chemical excesses of the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle.

Godfrey admits that Dive Deep could not have been made without the help of several collaborators, opening up Morcheeba’s traditional two-man songwriting unit to a host of new perspectives. Where the band’s past efforts focused on a single vocalist (most notably Skye Edwards), the new album features no fewer than five voices, ranging from the folky tenor of bassist Bradley Burgess (performing a fine cover of John Martyn’s “Run Honey Run”) to the chic Parisian tones of French chanteuse Manda.

“If you’re writing and producing a record, it’s interesting to think of yourself as a director and of the singers as actors,” Godfrey says. “It’s very much like an Almodóvar or Coen brothers movie, where you’ve got really great people giving you different angles on the same theme. You get a much deeper feeling as to what’s being said than you would with just one singer. This is the first time we’ve used this approach, but it won’t be the last.”

Morcheeba plays the Commodore Ballroom on Tuesday (April 8).