The String Cheese Incident [ tickets ]'s first studio album in more than three years is due in stores on May 15, and the jam band will pave the way for its release with a series of spring tour dates. The four-week tour will launch in mid-April with a multi-night stand in Austin, Texas.

This tour will focus on smaller venues, but the group will play larger summer festivals this summer.

According to the group’s publicist, the String Cheese Incident [ tickets ] has sold out most of the dates on its 21-show 2001 Winter Carnival Tour, which runs through March 18 and focuses on the West Coast. The current jaunt began in February with the group’s annual Mid-Winter Music Festival in Colorado, which sold almost 17,000 tickets over the five-day run.

The String Cheese Incident ended 2000 in Oregon at the Portland Convention Center, where the group held a three-day festival called 2001: A String Cheese Odyssey on Dec. 29-31. The festival followed a fall tour that saw the group visit much of the eastern U.S.

“Outside Inside,” the band’s forthcoming release, was recorded in Austin with producer Steve Berlin of Los Lobos.