Christine Ohlman hasn’t really been away. In the past five years, she has continued to work with her band Rebel Montez and as a singer for the Saturday Night Live Band, and released the retrospective Re-Hive last year.

But The Deep End, released this month, is her first record of new material since Strip in 2004. It is certainly worth the wait. A collection of bluesy and soul-infused rockers and ballads with emotional, heartfelt lyrics of love and loss, The Deep End is Ohlman’s most complete and accomplished work.

The album benefits from an impressive cast of guests who each add something special. Al Anderson plays guitar on two tunes, including the title track, Dion, Ian Hunter and Marshall Crenshaw each sing duet vocals with Chris, and Levon Helm, G.E. Smith, Eric “Roscoe” Ambel, Catherine Russell, Paul Ossola and Andy York, guitarist from the John Mellencamp Band who also produces with Chris, are among the many contributors.

Chris and her band will debut the album at Cafe Nine in New Haven on Saturday, Nov. 14.

Chris sets the scene on the opener, There Ain’t No Cure, a gritty, infectious rocking track that features York on lead guitar and Hunter adding a duet vocal. The title track, one of Ohlman’s best compositions, follows with its Latin feel in the verse, interesting melodic twists in the chorus and telling lyrics that speak of loss, something Chris has endured in these past five years losing her mate and producer Doc Cavalier and longtime guitarist and collaborator Eric Fletcher. Anderson provides the lead work on the track in his signature country-blues style.

All the uptempo material is a delight. The grooves are deep and the playing exemplary. Ohlman is in fine form vocally throughout, bringing her unique soulful delivery that ranges from smooth as glass to rough and raspy. Among them — Love Make You Do Stupid Things, driven by Ambel’s chord-flavored lead style, the country-rock feel of Love You Right, again with Anderson, Bring It With You When You Come, which sees Rebel Montez guitarist Cliff Goodwin take a fiery, spitting solo, and Born To Be Together, on which Goodwin is again featured this time playing off the melody through what sounds like a Leslie speaker — are all highlights.

All the tracks but three are written by Ohlman, with one a collaboration with Goodwin, The Gone Of You. She covers Cry Baby Cry with Dion, a stellar duet in a late ’50s-early ’60s R&B feel complete with a narrative middle section, the Marvin Gaye-Mary Wells Motown tune What’s The Matter With You Baby, on which Crenshaw delivers an inspired vocal interpretation that complements Chris well and lead guitar on the tag, and a duet with Fletcher on Link Wray’s Walkin’ Down The Street Called Love, from a live radio show on The Rock from 2005.

The Cradle Did Rock, Everybody Got A Heartache and What’s The Matter are each tastefully augmented with horns, provided by Chris Anderson (trumpet) and Neal Pawley (trombone) of the Asbury Juke Horns with Mark Rivera on tenor. Cradle is Chris’ meditation on News Orleans after Katrina and Mardi Gras 2006 that sends an insigtful message via a flaming R&B groove. Everybody lays down a churning, burning feel with G.E. Smith on lap steel and York taking a muted, almost elastic sounding lead drenched in echo.

Like Honey is a tender ballad that sets a scene of loneliness and remembrance and The Gone Of You travels similar territory with a compelling, repetitive lyric device. There’s a second version of the tune at the album’s end with a late night, spooky quality on which Ohlman sings to York’s instrumentation. Girl Growing Up is a gently, flowing country song played acoustically, including Ossola on stand-up bass.

Let’s not forget Chris’ rhythm section of Michael Colbath on bass and Larry Donahue, drums, who provide a bedrock of deep and soulful grooves on the bulk of the album.

Ohlman recorded The Deep End primarily at Vic Steffens’ Horizon Music Group in West Haven, in Nashville and in Woodstock at Helm’s studio.  The sound quality is excellent and atmosphere consistent throughout despite the disparate locals.

This is a band that must be seen, and the debut of The Deep End at Cafe Nine this week is the perfect repertoire at the perfect setting.