Subtlety isn't Local H's strong suit, evidenced by the "High-Fiving MF" song on their major label debut and the "Fuck You" t-shirts the duo sold to fans during its last tour. And because nothing exceeds like excess, the Chicago grunge band will recycle their favorite four-letter word for its next album, tentatively called That Fucking Cat.

"It's a concept album about cats," says frontman Scott Lucas, phoning from producer Roy Thomas Baker's studio in Lake Havasu, Ariz. Thus far guitarist Lucas and drummer Joe Daniels have written twelve-and-a-half songs for the follow-up to their gold-selling As Good as Dead. The sound, according to Lucas, has a more "stoner sensibility" and takes its inspiration from classic rock bands like Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd.

"Just the fact that there's less music out that I like to listen to has driven me back to my older records," he says. "I've been listening to Dark Side of the Moon a lot for the last couple of years. If you play [That Fucking Cat] along to Porky's, it does some weird things. There's some deep shit going on there."

According to Lucas, the album will be "one seamless piece of music," an extension of the group's last album which features segues and cross-fades.

As far as adding a bassist or additional instrumentalist to the duo, forget about it. "There's one song on the record called 'She Hates My Job,' where the melody is carried by a slide guitar," Lucas says. "I was wondering how we'd pull that off live. We might stick the guitar in the hands of one of our roadies."

Local H will finish recording the album by the end of the month and begin mixing it in Atlanta at the beginning of May, after the band opens for Cheap Trick at their Live at Budokan re-creation in Chicago on May 3. That Fucking Cat will likely see a July or August release.