New York City duo the London Souls finished its sophomore album in 2012, but then the album sat on the shelf for three years – for a pretty serious reason.

“A couple of months after we recorded it, I got into a bad car wreck and things were really uncertain,” says guitarist/vocalist Tash Neal, who was the victim of a hit-and-run.

So it’s some small miracle that last week, “Here Come the Girls” was finally released. On Friday, the London Souls (Neal and drummer/vocalist Chris St. Hilaire) play Visulite Theatre.

To say Neal had a lot to overcome to put the album out is an understatement.

After the accident, doctors performed emergency brain surgery and Neal was placed in a medically induced coma. “The diagnosis was six months to a year and then maybe I’d walk and talk again,” he says.

But Neal shocked his doctors when he awoke talking, and he eventually checked himself out of the hospital against their advice.

In the aftermath of the accident, he’d almost forgotten about the London Souls’ album. Hearing it for the first time was like a revelation.

“That was more vindication,” he says. “I thought, ‘That’s us?’ It was amazing. It was a pride thing and it connected me again. I even remembered (lyrics).”

And once Neal was able to pick up a guitar again, he began to feel more like himself.

“I saw that guitar and it connected me to a deeper part of myself that an accident can’t take away,” he says.

The versatile “Here Come the Girls” – which hops from Cream-y blues riffs and Lenny Kravitz-style funk to harmony-driven Beatles-schooled pop and psychedelic folk with a thread of ’60s and ’70s nostalgia throughout – has received a warm reception.

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