With the wreckage of The Wreckers well behind her and subjected to some record-label confusion regarding 2009’s Everything Comes And Goes EP, Michelle Branch is back from her years-long country sabbatical ready to compete on the pop charts with reigning queen Katy Perry.

The first several seconds of Branch’s new single “Loud Music,” released in June, certainly sound like someone’s had “California Gurls” and/or “Teenage Dream” on repeat. Things do get a bit rockier on “Loud Music” — well, midtempo rockier — with Branch name-checking Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix and offering an allusion AC/DC’s best-known song all within the first minute. In the next verse, The Rolling Stones get the hat tip, with Zeppelin making a repeat appearance in the bridge for good measure.

But “Loud Music” isn’t cut from that kind of classic-rock cloth. Instead, threads of ’70s power-pop run through the song, with Branch serving up an uber-hooky nugget (“La-ah-ah-oud”) I find quite tasty at this very moment in time.

The “Loud Music” video premiered a couple of weeks ago, showing Branch and her band of brothers on the road, driving a beat-up van (coasting inexplicably slowly at certain points), and stopping to take in the scenery along the way. Dial it up all the way to eleven.

“Loud Music” is the first single from Branch’s new album, West Coast Time, expected in September.

Purchase Michelle Branch – “Loud Music” via iTunes.