New Beastie Boys in April

The Beastie Boys' new album Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 2 comes out April 19, with a new single, "Make Some Noise," out March 28. Can you believe this is only the Beasties' eighth album? If you want to hear one of the tracks off the album, "Lee Majors Come Again," go here.

Coming soon...

Several of the bigger artists of the '90s have albums in the works:

* The Foo Fighters' new album Wasting Light comes out April 12. Krist Novoselic plays on one of the tracks, and Pat Smear is back in the band! Here's the first video, "White Limo" (featuring Lemmy from Motorhead)


* John Frusciante is gone, but the Red Hot Chili Peppers are in the studio working on a new album with new guitarist Josh Klinghoffer, formerly a touring musician for the band. Flea's Twitter is apparently the resource for recording updates. No release date has been announced, but the band is playing festivals in Japan in August and Brazil in the fall, so expect something around then.

* Radiohead's King of Limbs is out now electronically. If you want a hard copy, wait until May 9.

* R.E.M.'s new album Collapse Into Now comes out March 8. Four songs from the album have been released so far; I particularly like "Uberlin." Sadly, they've chosen not to tour for this one.


* Green Day will release a(nother) live album, Awesome as Fuck, on March 22. It has one new song, "Cigarettes and Valentines." See full tracklisting here.

Return of the Rentals (again)

Was Matt Sharp the key to Weezer? Most fans feel the Blue album and Pinkerton outshine the four post-Sharp albums. Sharp quit Weezer during the long post-Pinkerton hiatus to concentrate on his side project, the Rentals, who were then riding high off of "Friends of P". Then he broke up the Rentals after a poor-selling follow-up, did some solo work on tiny indie labels, sued Weezer for songwriting royalties, and now... the Rentals are back.


That's "Song of Remembering," off their odd new project Songs About Time, which will consist of some digital mini-albums, some short films, and some photographs. Get more info (and a four-song player of the first EP) here.

Weezer, meanwhile, are headlining the KROQ Weenie Roast in LA May 16, and are still supposedly touring with Blink-182 this summer, though as of yet no dates have been announced.

New Superdrag ... Industry Giants

I have no idea how I didn't learn about this until today, but Superdrag's first album in 7 years (and first with the original lineup since 1998's classic Head Trip in Every Key) is called Industry Giants, and it's out today. If you're at SXSW, they have six shows in Austin between now and Saturday. Go here for details.
Newbury Comics has autographed copies of the new CD, if that's your thing, or you can get bonus tracks at iTunes or Amazon if you buy the mp3s. If you want a sample, the Superdrag merch store has a free mp3 of the opener, "Slow to Anger."
The band do a short east coast tour (and a couple of dates in and around Chicago) in April.

I can't embed it, but if you want to see a video for the band's angry new single, "Aspartame," visit Spin's website.

New this week... Reel Big Fish, Duncan Sheik

Last week's release schedule was so light, I skipped it. So here are the albums new in stores this week (and last):

Trey Anastasio, Original Broadwalk Style- Live album, previously only available on the Phish singer's website.

John Frusciante, The Empyrean- the Chili Pepper guitarist's 10th solo album. Really. Haven't heard the other nine? You're not missing much.

The Odds, Cheerleader- Canadian power-pop band who had brief success in the US in 1998 with "Someone who is Cool:"


Reel Big Fish, Fame, Fortune, Fornication- Oh, my. It's a covers album, including their versions of hair metal songs, John Mellencamp, and "Brown-Eyed Girl."

RZA, Afro Samurai Resurrection- Wu-Tang Clan mastermind does an anime soundtrack, with guest spots from a lot of other Wu-Tang alums.

Duncan Sheik, Whisper House- album intended to be a sampler for the next Broadway musical from the Adult Top 40 fave turned Tony award-winner.

Swervedriver, Mezcal Head- remastered version of the shoegazers' 1993 album, with 4 bonus tracks.

Thom Yorke, The Eraser Remixes- I believe this originally came out in vinyl last spring, but now it's available on CD. As you can guess, it's remixes of songs from Yorke's solo album.

New this week... Spin Doctors

Another light week in the shops, and it doesn't look like a great release week January 20, either. But here's what's new in stores:

* (hed) p.e., New World Orphans- new album from one of the last rap-metal bands still standing.

*Playlist: The Very Best of the Spin Doctors- amazingly, this is the FOURTH greatest hits album from the Spin Doctors, and all of them contain the same mix of tracks off the band's first three albums for Epic (and nothing from their fourth or fifth albums). The most recent greatest hits, Super Hits: Spin Doctors(which appears to be aimed at the truck stop market) only came out in November. This new one's got 14 tracks, most of them off the first album, but including the semi-hits "Cleopatra's Cat" and "You Let Your Heart Go Too Fast," off the second album.

* Hotel for Dogsoriginal soundtrack - contains a solo track from Rancid's Tim Armstrong (and two tracks by Lisa Kudrow)

* Underworld: Rise of the Lycansoriginal soundtrack - features remixes of songs by the Cure, Perry Farrell, Puscifer (Tool singer Maynard James Keenan's side project) and Deftones, among others.

New this week... not much

Nothing of interest was released December 23 or 30, and there's not much out this week either.

* The Gourds, Haymaker!- this is the band who actually did the cover of Snoop Dogg's "Gin 'n Juice" that was all over the internet in Napster's early days (most frequently mislabeled as Phish).

New this week... Dave Matthews Band

Not a whole lot in stores this week, as things start slowing down before Christmas.

* Crash Test Dummies, Collections - greatest-hits compilation with a different tracklisting than last year's Best of.

* Dave Matthews Band, Live Trax Vol. 13- two-disc set recorded in June in St. Louis.
* Dave Matthews Band, Live at the Mile High Music Festival- three-disc set recorded in July in Denver. This is the first album not to feature saxophonist LeRoi Moore, who died earlier this year. Includes a cover of Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer."

* Shawn Mullins, Live At the Variety Playhouse- the "Lullaby" guy releases a live album, recorded in Atlanta. Also available as a DVD.

* Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chroniclessoundtrack - primarily orchestral score, though new castmember Shirley Manson (of Garbage) does some vocals on a couple of songs.

* Yes Man soundtrack - soundtrack to the new Jim Carrey movie. Features 9 tracks by Eels. One, "Man Up," is new.

New this week... Collective Soul

Time for a new feature here at Tied to the '90s. New this week... is designed to let you know what's out right now from various '90s artists.

In stores December 9:

* Collective Soul, Afterwords- this actually came out in 2007 as a Target exclusive. It's being re-released this week to all retail outlets with three Ed Roland solo tracks as a bonus. From the Amazon samples, it sounds like they're Roland with a drum machine, so don't take this as evidence of a forthcoming solo album.

* Mark Kozelek, The Finally LP- dude from '90s shoegazers Red House Painters cobbles together a bunch of odds 'n sods (mostly covers)

* Pavement, Brighten the Corners(Nicene Creedence Edition) - the indie slackers' 1997 album is re-released with beaucoup de bonus tracks.

* Stereophonics, Decade in the Sun- career retrospective from the band that pretty much defined Britpop in 1998-99 (even if nobody in the US cared by that point). Available in one-disc and two-disc "deluxe" editions.

New this week... Bloodhound Gang, Weiland, and more

Time for a new feature here at Tied to the '90s. New this week... is designed to let you know what's out right now from various '90s artists.

In stores December 2:

*Bloodhound Gang, Playlist Your Way - a greatest hits album, apparently only available at Circuit City (which is going out of business in most of the country). Neither allmusic nor the Circuit City website has the tracklisting, but you'd have to assume it'll include 1996's "Fire Water Burn" and 2000's "The Bad Touch."

* Rivers Cuomo, Alone II: The Home Recordings- even more cassette recordings and demos from the prolific Weezer frontman. From the snippets I've heard, these sound a lot more unfinished than the Alone album from last year.

* Gin Blossoms, Playlist Your Way - see the Bloodhound Gang entry above. Again, tracks weren't available, so I don't know how this is going to be any different from the Blossoms' existing greatest hits.

* Al Jourgenson, Wicked Lake soundtrack- the dude from Ministry soundtracks a horror movie.

* Moby, Last Night Remixed- a track-by-track remix of his album from earlier this year.

* Soundtrack - The Punisher: War Zone- features Rob Zombie, Slayer, Slipknot, and Static-X.

* Scott Weiland, Happy in Galoshes- the second solo album from the troubled Stone Temple Pilots / Velvet Revolver singer. Extensively covered elsewhere on this site, so we'll just move on.

* White Zombie, Let Sleeping Corpses Lie- boxset with all five of the band's studio albums, plus some extra tracks that only appeared on soundtracks and tribute albums. Hardcore fans may be disappointed to find there aren't any remixes included.

The Offspring are back!

And they have a new album, Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace, out June 17, their first since 2003's Splinter. It was produced by Bob Rock, most famous for his work with Metallica and Motley Crue (though he did produce the more-recent Our Lady Peace material). You can download the first single, "Hammerhead," for free at this link.
The band will be playing lots of festivals this summer, both in Europe and the U.S. Click here for dates.