When TLC named their 1995 breakthrough record CrazySexyCool, they were distinguishing the three members’ distinct personalities: Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins was Cool, Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas was Sexy and fire-starter Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes was Crazy. A similar idea is fundamental to the title Lopes devised for their fourth album. “Three girls, three styles, three personalities,” they announce. Except, of course, now there are only two.The surprising thing is, if you had spent the last 12 months in a soundproof bunker, you wouldn’t know Lopes died in a car accident last April in Honduras. There are no grimly prophetic lyrics from the late rapper or lip-quivering lamentations from her colleagues. Lopes wasn’t the Notorious B.I.G. — death wasn’t part of her repertoire — and this isn’t “I’ll Be Missing You.” TLC set out to make a wise, sassy, modern soul record, and, despite the intervening events, they have succeeded. Since TLC’s 1999 album, Fanmail, Destiny’s Child have snatched away the all-girl crown, and 3D commences with the unmistakable sound of stakes being raised, in the shape of the title track’s Dallas Austin–produced neo–drum & bass thunder. Wrapping pulverizing beats straight out of OutKast’s “B.O.B.” in TLC’s harmonies, it confirms the group’s talent for stamping disparate production styles (including those of the Neptunes, Rodney Jerkins and Organized Noise) with their own identity.Equally impressive are “Dirty,” a feverish Missy Elliott–and-Timbaland number, and “Quickie,” in which Lopes (who graces five tracks) taunts a date who can’t deliver the goods: “You need some ginseng for your ping-ping, so we could do it!”To find 3D’s emotional center, skip straight to “Turntable.” An “Unpretty”-style guitar-driven ballad about coping with bad fortune, it offers clear-eyed resilience rather than morbid sentimentality, and thus sums up the whole album. 3D’s sheer creative vibrancy is itself testament to Lopes’s live-wire charisma.