By the end of 1996, the band had nearly completed the album, which

By the end of 1996, the band had nearly completed the album, which they planned to release under the title Pure White Evil . Alexakis, however, was dissatisfied with the results and decided to work on more songs for the effort, including “One Hit Wonder” and the eventual title-track to the album, So Much for the Afterglow . The songs “The Swing” and “Otis Redding” were cut from the Pure White Evil Sessions and were not included on So Much for the Afterglow . Eventually they were released: the former on the soundtrack album for Scream 2 and the latter on Songs from an American Movie Vol. One: Learning How to Smile . So Much for the Afterglow was released in October 1997. The first two singles from the album, ” Everything to Everyone ” and ” I Will Buy You a New Life “, performed modestly, but helped to begin a slow build for the album, while “Local God” was featured in Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet in 1996 as well as on the soundtrack. The band completed a US tour at the end of the year and started 1998 with a tour of Australia.