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 on "So Much for the Afterglow". Eventually they were released: the former on the soundtrack album for "Scream 2" and the latter on "". "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 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.