Butthole Surfers: After The Astronaut (Cassette, indie exclusive) [SUNSET BLVD RECORDS]

Why you'll love it

An indie exclusive cassette of the album that was meant to follow Electriclarryland, shelved in 1998 and finally heard 28 years later. It is the first new Butthole Surfers studio album in 25 years, with the singles "Jet Fighter" and "Imbuya."

This edition

• Indie exclusive
• Cassette edition
• Twelve tracks, as originally planned for 1998

About the album

In 1996 the Butthole Surfers, the gloriously unhinged San Antonio band of Gibby Haynes, Paul Leary and King Coffey, had a genuine hit: "Pepper" went to No. 1 on Billboard's Modern Rock chart and Electriclarryland sold accordingly. The follow-up was recorded and ready for 1998, but the band's relationship with Capitol had gone sour, After the Astronaut was shelved, and most of its songs were re-recorded for 2001's Weird Revolution instead.

Sunset Blvd Records put the original out in June 2026, after the band's 2025 reunion. Leary produced and mixed it, Stuart Sullivan recorded it, Howie Weinberg mastered it, and it sounds like the bridge between the two records you already know: the loops and trip hop beats of Weird Revolution, with the strangeness of the earlier years still leaking in on "Mexico," "Venus" and "Junkie Jenny in Gaytown." The only copies that got out in 1998 were advance promo cassettes, so the format feels about right.

Tracklist

Listen

Out October 9, 2026 on Sunset Blvd Records (cat# CS-SBR-7103IE), first recorded in the late 1990s.