The Blood Brothers have wrapped work on their new studio album, "Crimes," and plan to unveil some of the material on a 20-date North American summer tour. The Seattle-based rock act is eyeing a fall release for "Crimes"; it remains signed to Ted Field's ARTISTdirect label, which has greatly scaled back operations as it attempts to secure new funding.

As for the tour, which kicks off July 2 in Minneapolis, expect to see vocalist Johnny Whitney playing keyboards and bassist Morgan Henderson switching to guitar on some tunes. Such experimentation is an outgrowth of the "Crimes" sessions, which saw the band incorporating piano, accordion and cello.

"The new songs are more melodic," says vocalist Jordan Blilie. "They're more rhythmically driven with bass and drum[s] taking more of a center stage. On the last record, we placed so much emphasis on the technical side of what we were playing, we'd get bogged down and over think every song."

Produced by John Goodmanson (Sleater-Kinney, Blonde Redhead), "Crimes" will be the follow-up to 2002's "Burn Piano Island, Burn," which reached No. 32 on Billboard's Heatseekers chart.

Here are the Blood Brothers' tour dates:

July 2: Minneapolis (Triple Rock)
July 3: Iowa City, Iowa (Gabe's Oasis)
July 4: Chicago (Bottom Lounge)
July 5: Detroit (Alvin's)
July 6: Toronto (Rockit)
July 7: Montreal (El Salon)
July 8: Cambridge, Mass. (Middle East)
July 9: Providence, R.I. (Living Room)
July 10: Brooklyn, N.Y. (North Six)
July 11: Philadelphia (First Unitarian Church)
July 12: Baltimore (Ottobar)
July 13: Cleveland (Grog Shop)
July 14: Columbus (Little Brother's)
July 15: Louisville (Keswick Democratic Club)
July 16: St. Louis (Creep Crawl)
July 17: Lawrence, Kan. (Bottleneck)
July 18: Denver (Bluebird Theatre)
July 19: Salt Lake City (Kilby Court)
July 22: Portland, Ore. (Meow Meow)
July 25: Seattle (Capitol Hill Block Party)