** Fishbone, “Chim Chim’s Badass Revenge,” Rowdy/Arista....

** Fishbone, “Chim Chim’s Badass Revenge,” Rowdy/Arista. Fishbone’s first album in three years is a batch of festive, unruly tunes that barrel along the fine line that separates exuberantly eclectic from simply scattered. Their signature blend of hard rock, funk, punk and ska often threatens to plunge off the deep end--and does on more than a few occasions.

As tight as the playing is on tracks such as “Sourpuss” and “Love . . . Hate,” the song structures are too loose to keep the music on track and the group strays into meandering jams. Intermittently, Fishbone does hold the course, demonstrating what a powerful sonic force it can be. In “Rock Star,” a furious hard-core flurry drives frontman Angelo Moore’s biting observations about the music industry; “Psychologically Overcast” is a hefty, Sly Stone-style grind fortified by John Bigham’s meaty guitar and grounded in a concrete groove and solid theme. “Nutmeg” closes the album on a sprawling but purposeful note.

Though executive producer Dallas Austin’s name has been associated with the smooth sounds of sirens like TLC and Madonna, he doesn’t leave much of an impact on this record, which is unfortunate, because a tighter rein would have gone a long way toward making it a stronger album.

Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent).