Jane's Addiction will finally get around to following up their 1990 alt-rock milestone Ritual de lo Habitual with the release of Hypersonic this summer. The album was produced by Bob Ezrin (Aerosmith, Kiss).

"It's awesome," guitarist Dave Navarro says. "It's the best thing we ever did."

According to Navarro, the notoriously unreliable band -- fronted by Perry Farrell, with Stephen Perkins on drums and new bassist Chris Chaney -- decided to get together in the studio only after a successful six-week outing on 2001's Jubilee tour. "We love playing together, and we play great shows," he said, "but we knew that if we're ever going to do it again we needed some new material."

By Perkins' accounts, the sessions have gone well. "We weren't even sure that we liked each other anymore," he told Rolling Stone earlier this year. "But we decided we loved each other again! It's fun to recreate the old stuff in a live situation, but it's so much better to create new music."

Jane's will preview material from the set in two post-Christmas gigs -- one December 28th in Denver and one New Year's Eve in Los Angeles -- before heading Down Under for the Big Day Out festival.

AUGUSTIN SEDGEWICK and COLIN DEVENISH
(December 17, 2002)