Baltimore's Love Riot to Release First New Album in 26 Years
NOTHING IS ETCHED IN STONE marks the band's long-awaited return to recording.
Baltimore band LOVE RIOT is set to release its first new album in 26 years, with NOTHING IS ETCHED IN STONE scheduled to arrive on September 25, 2026.
The band has also released the album's first single, 'Yeah, Yeah, Yeah,' along with a lyric video.
Originally written in 1999, 'Yeah, Yeah, Yeah' unfolds like a mini movie set against a rainy night in Baltimore's Fells Point. Transporting the listener to a time when bars like Fletcher's and Max's On Broadway were always packed, and historic restaurants like Bertha's still existed. Throughout this ride and its stops, the listener eavesdrops on the thoughts of a desperate lover, wondering what she did wrong as she contemplates what she can do to forget him.
'Driving down these city streets, I'm moving to my CD's beat and I...I got time. It's raining fast, I'm falling hard and here I am without cue cards. I keep forgetting my lines.'
The album features six new songs, along with the five songs Love Riot recorded before their long break, providing a musical bridge between then and now. This first single serves as a fitting introduction to an album that embraces memory without being defined by it.
The new tracks form a narrative arc from toxic passion to enduring devotion. 'It Happens Every Time' captures the chaotic rage of enabling a flawed lover, building to an explosive sonic climax before a quiet, resigned resolution. 'Count On Me' offers a softer, steadfast contrast. Where the former traps you in a cycle of blindness, the latter serves as a poetic, unwavering promise to support a loved one through their deepest hardships. While they explore a new sound in this album, the emotional depth and musical storytelling they achieved is deeply rooted in the band's rich history.
Love Riot first emerged in the Baltimore music scene in the early 1990s and quickly gained national attention. In 1994, the band won MusicQuest, Yamaha's worldwide music competition, earning a trip to Japan and the contest's grand prize. The winnings funded their debut album, MUSCLE, produced by Eric 'Roscoe' Ambel. Their follow-up, MAYBE SHE WILL (1996), earned widespread radio support and took the band to stages across the country, including Los Angeles' House of Blues, Nashville's Exit In, Washington DC's Nightclub 930, NYC's Bottom Line, and the Lilith Fair's Maryland stop. Their music appeared on television shows, soap operas, and films, and in 1997 the band appeared as themselves in NBC's Homicide: Life on the Street.
Following their final release before hiatus, HEAVEN CAN WAIT, life took the band in new directions. When lead singer and songwriter Lisa Mathews became a parent, she and bandmate Mikel Gehl turned their creative energy toward family audiences, forming the award-winning children's music group Milkshake. Over the following years, Milkshake became one of the country's most beloved children's bands, releasing multiple acclaimed albums, earning a Grammy nomination, being featured on PBS KIDS, Nick Jr. and the Emmy-winning ToddWorld, and appearing live from Maine to Mexico. But as their kids grew into adulthood, their inspiration waned. Actually, it was Lisa's now 26-year-old daughter, Jesse, who encouraged the Love Riot reunion during a drive with her mother last year.
'I had been saving all my past music, digitizing music from my 80s band, Beyond Words, and posting Love Riot stuff, making it all available on streaming platforms,' Lisa said. 'So Jesse calls it up on her phone and we listen. She says, 'Mom! This is great!' It was very gratifying to hear that. I said jokingly, 'Well, maybe I can get the band back together,' and she said, 'Mom! I would totally come see you.''
Taking that as a full endorsement of her return to Love Riot, Lisa reached out to the guys: Mikel Gehl (backing vocals, guitar), Mark Evanko (bass), Willem Elsevier (violin), and 'Young' Ron Campbell (backing vocals, drums). It was an immediate yes.
The band began writing and recording NOTHING IS ETCHED IN STONE last year with engineer Dave Nachodsky at Stages Music Arts. Longtime collaborator Eric 'Roscoe' Ambel, who produced and mixed Love Riot's breakthrough recordings in the 1990s, returned alongside Mario Viele to mix the new album at Cowboy Technical Services Recording Rig in Brooklyn, NY.
The experiences of raising families, building careers, enduring losses, and celebrating triumphs all became part of the foundation for NOTHING IS ETCHED IN STONE. The result is not a return to who Love Riot once was — it is a portrait of who they are now.
NOTHING IS ETCHED IN STONE — Track Listing
Side One
1. Yeah Yeah Yeah
2. I'm Not You
3. It Happens Every Time
4. One of These Days
5. So Much
6. Count On Me
Side Two
1. Howling at the Moon
2. When I See You
3. Better Now
4. Standing By You
5. Lost
Love Riot will be performing several album release shows in September. More information is available on the band's website.
