Since they broke up nearly 30 years ago, the Boston band Drop Nineteens have been anointed as pioneers of shoegaze, that dreamy sound of innocent vocals and heavy distorted guitars. This was big news to bandleader Greg Ackell.

“You could say I was touched to hear that. You could also say I was informed,’ Ackell said this week. “I wasn’t out there Googling our name, and I’m not a big fan of social media. So my knowledge of an audience forming after the fact would be minimal. But it just happened that it occurred to me to make music again while shoegaze was having a resurgence, things just aligned that way. And that’s good, because it would have been unfortunate if we’d done this when nobody was paying attention.” They play the Paradise on April 19, appropriately enough.

Drop Nineteens were originally together barely five years and made their two albums with largely different lineups. After a long stretch away from music altogether, Ackell finally agreed to reunite most of the lineup that made their acclaimed debut album, “Delaware” in 1992 (this includes co-singer Paula Kelley, who became a notable solo artist and a studio arranger in Los Angeles). They’ve released a new album, “Hard Light,” which finds the guitars as loud and the tunes as haunting as ever.

“I didn’t even own guitars anymore,” Ackell says. “For years I was content not doing music — that allowed me to become a music fan again, which was something I was robbed of being in a band. I’d get requests to put the band together, and I’d shut it down every time. But this one time, I put the phone down and started thinking about what a modern Drop Nineteens song might sound like. That was a question I’d never asked before. And it was Steve (bassist Steve Zimmerman) who said ‘Let’s get you a guitar and find out.’ And then the strangest thing happened, songs just started coming out. And I don’t just mean a couple of chords, I mean melodies, lyrics, everything. I wrote the lion’s share of what I contributed to the album in just a couple of days.”

Also intact is their tradition of unlikely cover tunes: They’ve done Madonna and Barry Manilow in the past, and their new single is Lana Del Rey’s “White Dress.” Ackell says that song and its B-side inadvertently explain the state of the band. “The first line I’ll quote is the finer one, because it’s Lana’s: ‘It was such a scene and I felt seen.’ The other line that sticks with me comes from our song ‘Nest’ and it says, ‘For the love of Godawful, I’m so glad I looked back.’ To me, those two lines tie a bow around the story of this band.”

The Paradise show is one of only seven dates they’re playing nationally, and Ackell isn’t sure if there’ll be anything after that. But he does have another career to go back to, a successful flower company he started in New York. “I’ve only had three jobs in my life, the others were Drop Nineteens and Steve’s Ice Cream on Mass. Ave. So I’ve only ever sold ice cream, music and flowers. And I sleep pretty well at night.”