Soul Asylum and Hippo Campus drop new songs, album news ahead of Minnesota Yacht Club gigs

Two of Minnesota’s top-selling rock bands from different eras, Hippo Campus and Soul Asylum each released new songs and accompanying album news this week ahead of big hometown gigs at this weekend’s Minnesota Yacht Club festival.

On Wednesday, Soul Asylum debuted its dirt-shaking new tune, “High Road,” alongside news that it reunited with the Rolling Stones’ new drummer Steve Jordan to produce an LP due out this fall, titled “Slowly But Shirley.” The album title and its cover art both pay homage to drag-racing pioneer Shirley “Cha Cha” Muldowney, who was a childhood hero of frontman Dave Pirner.

A seasoned session drummer and sideman also known to Pirner from when the old lineup of his band toured with Keith Richards’ X-Pensive Winos, Jordan previously produced one of Soul Asylum’s best-loved albums from its pre-“Runaway Train” days, 1990′s “And the Horse They Rode In On… .” He came to Minneapolis to work with them on the new recordings at the Terrarium studio last year.

Hippo Campus already announced it would have a new album out this year on Sylvan Esso’s record label, Psychic Hotline. The release date and title of the record were unveiled Tuesday along with a new song and details of it all being co-produced by a big name in the indie-rock world.

Brad Cook — an ex-bandmate of Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon who has also produced for Waxahatchee and Nathaniel Rateliff — co-helmed the new Hippo Campus album with the band’s longtime collaborator, Caleb Wright. Titled “Flood,” the LP is due out Sept. 20.

To help hype presales, the group released a third track off the album Tuesday, an off-kilter but ultra-catchy ditty titled “Paranoid,” which will be the lead single from it. Twin Cities fans might recognize the library setting in the song’s music video as the historic James J. Hill Center, a few blocks from the St. Paul Conservatory of Performing Arts, which the band members attended.

Soul Asylum and Hippo Campus are both on Saturday’s schedule at the Minnesota Yacht Club festival in St. Paul. The former is set to play at 3 p.m. and the latter at 5 p.m., followed at 6 p.m. by semi-local favorites the Hold Steady — who will hopefully also have some new music to share soon.