Bassist/vocalist Watt will hit the road with his current group The Secondmen: organist Pete Mazich and drummer Jerry Trebotic. The trio recorded "Middle Stand" in San Pedro, CA, the Los Angeles-area town that has served as Watt's home base since he was a child.

Watt, who was a founding member of Southern California punk rockers Minutemen, has described the new album as his "illness piece," documenting his bout with a painful, near-fatal, intestinal abscess in 2000 (sample titles: "Boilin' Blazes," "Puked to High Heaven," "Bursted Man").

"The cliche is 'last stand,' but I just couldn't see it being my 'last stand,'" Watt said in a statement of the forthcoming album, which was inspired in part by Dante's Divine Comedy. "[Dante] wrote that in the middle of his life, too. When I read it again, after the sickness, in my 40s, I saw it as a kind of vehicle for him to talk about the intense stuff in his life."

"Middle Stand" was initially scheduled for release in May, but the release date was pushed back in the wake of changes at Columbia Records. The set will be issued by Columbia's RED Ink imprint.

Watt recently wrapped up a mid-summer stint playing bass with the reunited Iggy & The Stooges.