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Everything old is new again.

For the past few weeks, the list of album releases has given me an odd sense of deja vu circa 1997.

Tricky, Matthew Sweet, UNKLE, Joan Osborne, Juliana Hatfield. The list reads like someone is rambling off SPIN covers from my high school days.

This comebackitis is definitely contagious. Even the New Kids on the Block decided to make a go at it. For the most part these attempts range from bland to boring. But four albums by some ’90s Britpop royalty deserve closer inspection.

Oasis

Then: In the mid-’90s, Oasis was the biggest band in the world. Thanks to relentless touring and a bevy of radio-friendly tunes, they were one of the few British bands from that period to make significant headway in the U.S. market. While the band’s contemporaries (Pulp and Blur specifically) made more critically acclaimed albums, Oasis actually spoke to the common man in a powerful blend of distorted guitars and melodies cribbed from the Lennon/McCartney songbook.

Now: It’s hard to tell just how reflexive a title “Dig Out Your Soul” is for the Manchester band. After getting caught up in their own reflections, the brothers Gallagher finally realized that they needed to look a little deeper if they wanted to make a worthy successor to “Champagne Supernova” or “Wonderwall.”

There’s nothing on “Dig Out Your Soul” that manages to scale those heights, but plenty of tracks, especially the classic rock anthem “The Shock of Lightning,” hint that Oasis isn’t too far from regaining its swagger. On its own, the album is a competent, occasionally compelling, work of pop snarl. But if this is really just a shot across the bow, then be prepared for Oasis to tussle with Coldplay for the title of “Biggest Band in the World.”

The Verve

Then: Until the Rolling Stones sued them for copyright infringement (for using bits of an orchestral version of “The Last Time”), the Verve was riding with the album “Urban Hymns,” which sold 8 million copies in 1997. Back then, you couldn’t walk 10 steps without hearing “Bitter Sweet Symphony.” But the legal tussle over publishing rights for the song eventually caused the band to split a year later.

Now: After 11 years and a couple of terrible solo albums by frontman Richard Ashcroft, the Verve is back with a lukewarm effort, “Forth.” The problem isn’t the music. The band relies on the same elegant walls of guitars and strings to the same brooding purposes. Ten years ago, that was the bee’s knees, but now it just sounds dated. Had “Forth” dropped in say, 1999, the response might have been much different.

Still, you got to hand it to Ashcroft, the guy can write some catchy songs. Those are the new disc’s saving grace. “Love is Noise,” with its feedback-laden melodies, is as addictive as a pop song can get.

But when the Verve get contemplative, which it does too often, the band sounds like a pompous dinosaur from an era of record-label largesse, outdated and overblown.

Spiritualized

Then: Many have tried to create the perfect headphone symphony, a wave of synths and guitars every bit as lush as anything by Haydn or Bach. Spiritualized’s “Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space” finally hit the mark in 1997. Frontman Jason Pierce once relied on repetitive riffs and drones to create hypnotic music, but on “Ladies and Gentlemen,” he drew from classic rock, gospel and R&B, making a more supple and organic sound.

Now: Five years removed from his last album, several of those spent recovering from a brush with death, Pierce returns with his best set in a decade, “Songs in A&E.” This album is much less about the waves of music and much more about Pierce’s raw voice, which falls somewhere in between Jakob Dylan and Tom Petty. There are country tunes, “Baby I’m Just a Fool,” and Coldplay-esque anthems, “Soul on Fire.” But at its best, the music is ethereal in a woozy way on “The Waves Crash In,” where the velvety melodies blend with Pierce’s abrasive vocals to hit a musical sweet spot Spiritualized hadn’t yet reached.

James

Then: To most people, James is just another in a long line of British one-hit wonders — thanks to “Laid,” the band’s surprisingly tender look at dysfunctional love. But the band actually put together a pretty impressive set of comfortable yet nuanced albums in the early ’90s that should have taken hold with the “Friends” set like it did in the U.K.

Now: Decades after producer Brian Eno pushed them away from a sounding like U2 Jr., the band has come back around to that sound with “Hey Ma.” If anything, this album sounds more like “Joshua Tree” than it does “Laid.” The title track and “Oh My Heart,” a song that could have easily been recorded 1991, sound a lot like the work of Bono and company but for the less-restrained vocals of Tim Booth. (As if anyone could be less-restrained than Bono.) Luckily, the album doesn’t veer into the pompous windbag territory in which U2 often holds court. Instead, “Hey Ma” fits nicely into the mix of albums you’d play while driving aimlessly with the windows down.