TORONTO - k.d. lang and the Siss Boom Bang may have a nice ring to it, but the Canadian songstress says the title of her new alt-country band is more than just a clever rhyme.

It represents the blast they had making their new album, "Sing It Loud" (out Tuesday), which was recorded over three days during the July 4 weekend in Nashville last year.

"When I played the record for my friend after we had finished recording it ... she goes: 'Yeah, it started off like a k.d. lang record ... and then siss, boom, bang -- the band kicks in,"' and I went: 'Oh my god, that's the name of the band,'" lang said in a recent phone interview.

"Because to me it was about fireworks and it was about explosiveness and spontaneity and just the excitement of it."

"Sing It Loud" is lang's first record made entirely with a band of her own since she launched her illustrious career 20 years ago with the Reclines, a Patsy Cline tribute band.

The new project began when lang met multi-instrumentalist Joe Pisapia through Canadian sound engineer Gordon Reddy during a tour for her last studio album, 2008's "Watershed."

She and Pisapia -- a New Jersey native who was in the acoustic-pop band Guster -- "clicked instantly," she said, and after her tour she flew down to his Nashville studio to collaborate with him.

"We wrote two songs that first day, which was 'Perfect Word' and 'The Water's Edge, so it was just 'Go' from day one and it's just a beautiful chemistry," the Edmonton-born lang recalled from Los Angeles, where she now lives.

The rest of Siss Boom Bang came together just as organically.

Lang had already worked with keyboardist Daniel Clarke and Joshua Grange, who plays baritone guitar and dobro. Bassist Lex Price knew Pisapia from Nashville. And drummer/percussionist Fred Eltringham of the Wallflowers fame was a colleague of Clarke.

"When we set up the recording session, I had a really good feeling," said lang. "It was the first time we'd put this particular group together, but when they walked in the studio at 11 o'clock on the first day of recording, it was palpable.

"I could feel it. I knew this was my band. We started to play and three days later we had recorded eight songs. It was July 4th weekend and it was just so spontaneous and combustible."

Lang and Pisapia (who is also the band's musical director) produced the songs, many of which were recorded live off the floor and have hints of a range of genres, from rockabilly to country and surf.

Many of the song lyrics concern matters of the heart, but lang said they're not autobiographical.

Lang's voice -- which Tony Bennett once declared as the best of her generation -- is as strong, sensual and playful as ever on the tunes, which also include the lead single, "I Confess," and a version of the Talking Heads tune "Heaven."

"It was probably the most fulfilling, creative experience of my lifetime, I have to say, because it happened so fast and so easy," lang said of the recording process.

"The thing about when you find a really good creative partner, and I've certainly found it in Joe, is that there's this liberty; it's a safety net, it's sort of an infinite safe sand box and you get play in it and you get to throw sand, you get to eat it and you just, you do anything you want without feeling judged or like you're going to make a mistake."

The experience also ignited a flurry of emotions for lang, who has won eight Juno Awards and four Grammys.

For one thing, she worried that much of the chatter surrounding the album would be "about k.d.'s return to Nashville," and not about her new group, she said.

Plus, she wasn't sure what to expect after her time in Nashville in the 1980s, when the traditional country set there was leery of her heralded, edgy stylings.

"When I initially went down to Nashville, I was flooded by all sorts of memories and not a lot of them really positive," said lang.

"I always felt like such an outsider back in the 80s, but I have to stay that there's this pocket of Nashville now that is incredibly dense with musicians and liberal arts that it's almost like an Austin implanted in Nashville and it was just an eye-opening experience."

K.d. lang and the Siss Boom Bang are on a world tour that will take them to Toronto on June 17 for a free outdoor concert at the Luminato arts festival, and then several other Canadian cities throughout the summer.