Supergrass Plan LP, Tour

Evidently, they've been diligently rocking out. If you're patient and want proof, a Flash-animation transistor radio gizmo on the band's "Children of the Monkey Basket" web site will let you hear snatches of the new record. The clips seem to hint at an album with a bigger, lusher sound and a wider variety of sonic flavors, although making such a guess on this meager evidence is like reading cow entrails to predict next year's harvest. XFM cites unnamed "reports" that claim the album will be released later this year.

Finally, the quartet (singer Gaz Coombes' keyboarding brother Robert officially joined the band in 2002; he's the creepy, behatted uncle in the band photos) will emerge, blinking and parched, from their hideyhole for a series of May dates in the UK. Ah, to be in Preston in the spring... Ignoring everything their teachers taught them about the superiority of the active voice, XFM adds that "more dates are expected to be announced in the coming weeks." For now, the tour goes a little something like this:

05-15 Manchester, England - Manchester University
05-16 Sheffield, England - Leadmill
05-17 Leeds, England - Leeds University
05-19 Loughborough, England - Loughborough University
05-21 Preston, England - University of Central Lancaster
05-23 Newcastle, England - Newcastle University
05-24 Northampton, England - Roadmender
05-25 Bath, England - Pavilion
05-27 Norwich, England - University of East Anglia
05-29 Portsmouth, England - Pyramid Centre
05-30 London, England - Bud Rising at Koko
05-31 Liverpool, England - Liverpool Academy

* Pitchfork Review: Supergrass: Supergrass is 10
* Pitchfork News: Supergrass at Work on Next Full-Length
* Supergrass [official site]: <a