Fortunately, the results of their efforts – Aurora and Your Body Is the World – are two of the best songs the band have ever written. Mineral have managed to do what so many bands dream of doing: capturing the essence of a former life in producing something entirely new. But fans would be wise not to hold their breaths for a new LP anytime soon.
“I feel like we might be pushing our luck to think that we could write a full album's worth of material that would connect in the same way,” Jeremy says. “It's a little frightening to think about it.” He pauses, before adding, “It's not completely out of the realm of possibility.”
Meanwhile, in their live show, they’re still getting acquainted with the new material, figuring out how to perform their first new songs in over 20 years.
“I enjoy playing them, but they feel so much more tenuous to me,” Chris says. “The other stuff, we've rehearsed so much. These [new] ones feel pretty comfortable with all the old stuff, but every night when I see these new songs come up in the set list, I’m like, ‘Alright. Here we go. Buckle up.’”
Whereas most bands exist to introduce new music in their sets, Mineral aren’t most bands: after a two decade break, they’ve only recently gotten back into the groove with their old music – tunes that had gone untouched for two decades, canonized by fans in the interim.
“At the beginning of the 2014 tour, it was really trial by fire with the Bowery Ballroom shows in New York – just packed out every night,” Jeremy recalls of the band’s initial reunion. “We were like, ‘Holy shit – what did we get ourselves into? We weren't sure if this was going to work… And then as it went on, and so far on this tour, we've settled into a pretty good spot.”