The Colorado-by-way-of-Illinois band Planes Mistaken For Stars were ticketed for some degree of stardom when their first full-length album, Fuck With Fire, dropped in 2001. That was the same year that brought Thursday’s Full Collapse, Hot Water Music’s A Flight And A Crash, and Converge’s Jane Doe. In other words: a boom time for scathing, fire-breathing, metal-edged post-hardcore. Planes Mistaken For Stars followed Fuck With Fire with two superior albums — 2004’s Up In Them Guts and 2006’s Mercy — on which the band got heavier, gnarlier, more focused and more intense, but those albums failed to attract much more than a small cult following. I’m a member of the cult: Up In Them Guts and Mercy are two of my favorite records of all time, and I listen to them regularly even today.

For a number of reasons, PMFS called it quits in 2007. The band’s members worked in a handful of other projects — Git Some and Hawks & Doves, to name two — and eventually reunited for some sporadic live performances in 2010, 2012, and 2014. (They also essentially served as David Eugene Edwards’ backing band on Wovenhand’s incredible 2014 album, Refractory Obdurate.) With the announcement of their assorted tour dates last year came the revelation that they were working on some new music. But … no new music appeared. Hell, there weren’t even any updates on the band making new music. It was total silence. Nothing.

Today, though, there’s something: Deathwish Records — the label run by Converge’s Jake Bannon; home to Deafheaven and the aforementioned Wovenhand, among many others — announced the release of a remastered Mercy in July. And that announcement came with a short video about PMFS, titled “We Do As We Must, Together…,” featuring testimonials about the band from Deathwish artists Ryan Patterson (Coliseum), Nate Newton (Converge), and Jeremy Bolm (Touche Amore). It also included new tour dates (!), and noted that PMFS “have been quietly and persistently working on new music, due to surface on Deathwish sometime in the future.”

So they’re working on new music, and they’ve got a label lined up to release it. As far as I’m concerned, that’s a huge deal! I saw PMFS at Brooklyn’s St. Vitus in 2012, and it was (and remains) the best show I’ve seen at the venue (and I’ve seen a lot of great shows at St. Vitus). That was five years after they split, and they were in peak form. I’m not joking around here; it was bedlam. I can’t wait to hear what they’re working on next. Man, I can’t even wait to hear the remastered Mercy. You should get stoked, too. Here’s my favorite song from Mercy, “Crooked Mile,” and below that, “We Do As We Must, Together….” And then, two more “testimonial videos”: one via Brann from Mastodon, the next via Lars from Wolves Like Us. Check ‘em out. Finally, below all the videos, are the new tour dates. I will see you at St. Vitus.

Planes Mistaken For Stars tour dates:

07/15: Detroit, MI @ The Sanctuary

07/16: Pittsburgh, PA @ Howlers

07/17: Philadelphia, PA @ Boot & Saddle

07/18: Asbury Park, NJ Asbury Lanes

07/19: Brooklyn, NY @ St. Vitus

07/21: Cambridge, MA @ Middle East upstairs

07/22: Washington D.C. @ DC9

07/23: Richmond, VA @ Strange Matter

07/24: Help? (email: [email protected])

07/25: Help? (email: [email protected])

07/26: Gainesville, FL @ the Atlantic

07/27: St. Augustine, FL @ Nobbys

07/28: Atlanta, GA @ The Earl

07/30: Cincinnati, OH @ North Side Yacht Club

07/31: Chicago, IL @ Fizz

The Mercy reissue is out 7/14 via Deathwish.