Hot Lava’s new album is a rock opera about breaking up with yourself.

“I kind of blew up my life a couple of years ago,” founding member Allison Apperson says. “I wasn’t happy where I was in life. I moved away. I got divorced. I came out. I left a dream job. I did all these things that didn’t make sense and seemed kind of bad at the time. But in the end, I got something really nice out of it.”

The Richmond pop rockers, known for their jangly guitars and often ridiculous themes, are releasing their first record in 17 years with “Queen of Fools.”

“It doesn’t feel like it’s been that long, but then I look and see how much time has passed,” she notes. “I didn’t know if we’d ever do this again, but here we are and I’m excited to play.”

After the release of 2008’s “Lavalogy” [on respected indie label Bar/None Records out of Hoboken, New Jersey] the band went on an unofficial hiatus as members went their separate ways to become responsible adults.

“I felt like it was that point in your life when you feel like you should work a 9 to 5, which is dumb,” she recalls. “But everyone in the band was like, ‘I guess we go to work now.’ So we all moved away and got jobs and the band was on hold.”

Apperson continued to work on demos from bedroom recordings for a potential new album called “Ice Land” with former band member Jared Sosa, who had moved to California. But life got in the way and those demos remained on the shelf until Apperson recently moved back to Richmond after spending five years living in Boston.

When she got back, she wanted to play music again. Her friend Kelly Queener soon asked if she wanted to play drums in a band with her.

“I couldn’t play drums, but she told me to just do it anyway. I did, and it was really fun,” Apperson says. Over time, Queener and Russell Lacy, a musician who runs the Virginia Moonwalker studio, kept encouraging her to record again.

“[They kept saying] ‘We know you have a ton of demos. Don’t you want to make a record?’ I kept saying no for different reasons, but they just kept poking me to record these songs,” she says. “And that finally gave me the confidence to just do it.”

With an impressive mix of musicians contributing, Hot Lava is something of a royal court now. Still at its core is Apperson on guitar/vocals and keyboardist Matt Deans, with Queener and Lacy also contributing to the record on vocals and bass, respectively. The live version of the group features guitarist John Sizemore, bassist Gabe Lopez of The Milkstains and veteran drummer Brian Wiltz.

In a way, the new album seems like a collage of the last 15 years; some songs are very old, others are only a few months old, but they all hang together thematically, being mostly about realization, growth, and acceptance—what some people might call maturity.

The title track “Queen of Fools” is about accepting where life has taken you and celebrating being the biggest fool as a win, while another song “weird+nice” addresses the folly of trying too hard to please people.

The track “What Not To Wear” began as a sassy response to a friend who told Apperson to spruce up her wardrobe, before the singer realized it was really more about allowing herself to be authentic and uncomfortable, which could help bring about growth in a big way, returning her shine. “That was kind of my coming out song without realizing it at the time,” she says. “Took me years to figure out what I was saying there.”

But despite making a more grown-up record, Apperson says the classic Hot Lava sound isn’t going anywhere.

“It’s still pop music with jangly guitars and weird vocal effects and keyboards, because why would we make a record without all of that?” she says. “It’s still just as cheeky, but instead of technology and dragons and veganism, we’re talking about more mature subject matter like growing up and finding your place. Oh no! We’re adult contemporary now!”

Apperson is thankful for being the queen of fools in her own life because it led her to rediscovering her love of playing music as well as reconnecting with the Richmond community, validating the decision for Hot Lava to return.

“Hot Lava embraces the ‘sad songs that sound happy’ model because that’s the way I like to write,” she explains. “For me, the record is an audible time capsule of the craziest few years of my life. My friends encouraging me to get into the studio, and then making this with me, kept me going. I’ll always think this is a special batch of songs.”

Hot Lava will celebrate the release of “Queen of Fools” with an album release show on Friday, May 30 at Gallery5 with Sweet Touch and Camo Face.