Back in 1992, when k.d. lang morphed from alt-country cowgirl sweetheart to swoon-pop chanteuse, it was a big surprise to her fans.

And that move required an adjustment that turned out to be a long-term one, because, throughout the subsequent years, lang continued to sing atmospheric songs that were alternately subtle, haunting, and slinky—but she never returned to that occasionally campy alt-country / countrypolitan sound of those classic late-1980s albums like “Shadowland” and “Absolute Torch and Twang.”

But last year, she found herself again hankering to plumb her own, sometimes theatrical version of countrified music. Perhaps it was because 2010 was the 25th anniversary of her recording debut, but she also started yearning to hear country music again at her soundchecks. Plus, after touring and recording with session musicians for the previous 18 years, she also felt a pull toward collaborating again—like she did with her old alt-country band, the Reclines.

So, Gord Reddy, a member of lang’s road crew, arranged for her to meet guitarist / songwriter Joe Pisapia while she was in Nashville to do a show. Lang later said she felt an instant connection with Pisapia, who plays many other instruments.

They met for coffee, and by the end of the day, they’d written two songs together—and lang was on her way back to alt-country territory, via her latest album, “Sing It Loud,” which she recorded with a new band, Siss Boom Bang, that she and Pisapia assembled.

Lang and the Siss Boom Bang bring their new material to Hill Auditorium on Friday for an Ann Arbor Summer Festival show, with Pisapia as music director.

"Right off the bat, I said, 'I want these songs to be very real, very soulful, and always, always positive and joyful,'" lang told USA Today. "I wanted to write songs that would play themselves on stage, songs that sweep you through their current.

"We recorded 8 songs in just 3 days, and after that it was obvious that this wasn't just my album," lang says. "The band had contributed such a unique sound and perspective." A friend suggested the group’s name, which struck her as lang as fitting, "since we had recorded around July 4th."

Lang said she found that the collaborative environment, and working in a rootsier style again, opened her up to new ways of singing—like veering quickly from sounding soft and vulnerable to almost shouting. (Which is underscored by the album cover, which depicts her yelling gleefully into a megaphone.)

“Sing It Loud” kicks off with “I Confess,” a throwback to the music of Roy Orbison. (lang won her first Grammy for her 1987 duet with Orbison on his heart-fluttering classic, “Crying.”) But “I Confess” isn’t in that sighing / yearning vein. It focuses more on the swaggering side of Orbison’s music, with echoey production and guitars and drums that explode about a minute into the track and carry it forward.

“Inglewood,” meanwhile, conjures the twang of her days with the Reclines. “A Sleep with No Dreaming,” “The Water’s Edge” and “Perfect Word” are similarly retro-rootsy, and the whimsical “Sugar Buzz” showcases lang’s amazingly powerful pipes and astonishing vocal range.

Of course, that’s always the focal point of a lang record, no matter what style she’s immersed in. On several of the tracks, she just cuts loose, singing with her signature drama, bravura and flair, as her voice swoops upward to big, expansive notes and sustains them like few pop singers can.

About halfway through the record, the album segues into arrangements that find common ground between “torch and twang” and the more languorous sound and mood of her ‘90s and ‘00s albums. One of those is a re-working of the Talking Heads’ richly ironic “Heaven.”

And there are many moments on the disc where lang and her band demonstrate a loose, playful sense of humor, from the arrangements to the lyrics to lang’s vocal phrasing.

“I always felt like there was a part of me that wanted to continue the cowpunk thing,” said lang in a statement when the album was released. “But I didn’t want to push it. It’s something that has to arise naturally. And this was just the year. I felt it in the back of my soul. I kept thinking I was going to find this guitar player who was a lyricist and more rock-oriented. And then Joe appeared.

“I just really struck gold when I found him,” lang continued. “When he writes, that boy will go off like a kid. When you write from a place of naïveté or childlike expression, it’s the best, because it erases the restraints of self-consciousness. Generally you pre-edit yourself, but he erases that. There’s a freedom, a liberty.”

“I think I took my music so seriously at certain points in my life that it took away the joy and the spontaneity. I always felt like there was a huge portion of k.d. lang that was based in humor, and somehow I kind of forgot that truckload. Now I’ve found it again.”

Given the current sorry state of pop radio, and the doldrums the record companies have been in for the last decade, lang knows she has to rely on other pipelines if she wants to expose new people to her music.

For example, continuing to tour consistently has been a key to sustaining her career in this climate, and she’s also used TV to her benefit—like last year, when she appeared on “Glee” and performed “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” with the show’s Matthew Morrison.

And then there was her monster, global-village gig in February 2010 when she performed her riveting version of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” at the opening ceremonies of the Vancouver Winter Olympics—before a TV audience of 32 million. (Both lang and Cohen are Canada natives.)

“Television really has been my vehicle,” she told USA Today. “I don’t get played on the radio much, so I’ve relied on TV a lot.”

Kevin Ransom, a free-lance writer who covers music for AnnArbor.com, interviewed k.d. lang in 1995 and 1997 for The Detroit News. He can be reached at KevinRansom10@aol.com