Last year, the founding four-piece lineup of ’90s alt-rockers Veruca Salt reunited for the first time in almost 20 years, for some summer tour dates and time in the studio. Now it looks like that studio time was fortuitous, as Rolling Stone announced today a new Veruca Salt album—the first with these original four band members since 1997’s Eight Arms To Hold You—is imminent.
Nina Gordon, Louise Post, Steve Lack, and Jim Shapiro have been in studio with their American Thighs producer Brad Wood, now owner of L.A.’s Seagrass Studios. The two preview singles from the forthcoming Ghost Notes prove that the intervening decades have not dulled Gordon and Post’s fierce harmonies. “Laughing In The Sugar Bowl” shows the band’s tendency to thrash poppy songs with a punk sensibility, and album opener “The Gospel According To Saint Me” hints at what the band might have been up to during its long hiatus—“I wanted to live, so I pretended to die/I had to shut down, cash out, and get buried alive”—then celebrates the band’s return: “It’s gonna get loud.”
Veruca Salt’s website states that Ghost Notes will be released on July 10 on El Camino Records. Here are the summer dates announced so far:
July 8—Soda Bar—San Diego, California
July 10—Slim’s—San Francisco, California
July 11—El Rey—Los Angeles, California
July 21— Mercy Lounge—Nashville, Tennessee
July 22—The Ready Room— St. Louis, Missouri
July 23—The Cedar— Minneapolis, Minneapolis
July 25—Wicker Park Fest—Chicago, Illinois
July 28—Lee’s Palace— Toronto, Ontario
July 30—Paradise— Boston, Massachusetts
July 31—Webster Hall—New York, New York
August 1—9:30 Club— Washington, D.C.