Les Savy Fav Announce New Album ‘OUI, LSF’; Reveal Single and Tour Dates

After releasing their first new music in 14 years, Les Savy Fav is back again to announce their second single, “Guzzle Blood,” from upcoming LP OUI, LSF, due May 10th. It’s impossible to talk about Les Savy Fav without acknowledging that it’s been over ten years since the guys released 2010’s Root for Ruin. But it’s not like they had a messy breakup or quit to become bankers. They just had a lot of living to do.

Lead singer Tim Harrington states:

“When we finished our last record, there was a sense that if we were going to do more, we wanted to do something more ambitious. I think it took us a while to even get in a space where that was possible.”

Remember, these five men — Harrington, Seth Jabour, Syd Butler, Harrison Haynes, Andrew Reuland — have been friends and collaborators since 1995, when they attended Rhode Island School of Design. It takes a beat to shake old habits.

In the interim, the band has been busy building and growing their families, taking and losing jobs, and living through the various ecstatic and hideous aspects of growing older. Harrington wrote and illustrated children’s books (like 2015’s Noes to Toes You are Yummy), ran out of money, built his attic studio, wrestled with mental health issues, and got a job-job as a creative director. Butler continued to run his label, Frenchkiss (which released the majority of the band’s albums, including this one), and, along with Jabour, honed his writing skills as a member of Seth Meyers’ 8G band.

Harrison left his career teaching to focus on fine art, while Reuland built a reputation as a film/commercial editor and writer on Adult Swim’s cult show Ballmastrz: 9009. That onslaught of personal ambitions and adulting could spell death for many bands, but, as Harrington puts it:

“The band was never a job, so we can’t get fired and don’t have to quit. We had the time to figure out how to bring the people we’ve become and the people we are as artists together authentically. There’s a chaotic, untethered ecstasy at the center of the band’s universe. Squaring that with the desire to create stability and the need to endure some grind isn’t easy.”

Les Savy Fav ‘OUI, LSF’ album artwork

Over the years, the band has continued to perform, always on their own terms, but after a stint at Primavera in 2022, they caught the proverbial songwriting bug once more, sharing demos, jamming in Harrington’s attic, and recording through the heap of DIY and esoteric gear Harrington collected over the last decade. At first, there was no intention of recording an album; they were playing music, not writing it.

States Butler:

“The last record was a lot about holding on. OUI, LSF is the sound of release — no map, no preconceptions, no self-righteous certainty. There’s nothing like hitting 50 to slap the cocksure vanity off your face.”

That’s not to say it was easy. The challenge of learning a new way to write and work together took a lot of letting go. Among the artwork that plasters the attic studio is a piece by Harrington that reads, “Can’t do it how you want. Don’t want to do it how you can,” spiraling into a bloodshot eye.

He says:

“I put it there as a warning about how easily that fixation can paralyze you.”

The resulting album is a glorious mix of tragedy and comedy, studded with nods to the band’s eclectic musical taste, delightfully weird and utterly them. Album opener “Guzzle Blood” crashes us into the record like a runaway cop car, setting the tone for the rest of the 14-song suite.

OUI, LSF Track Listing:

1. Guzzle Blood
2. Limo Scene
3. Void Moon
4. Mischief Night
5. What We Don’t Don’t Want
6. Legendary Tippers
7. Dawn Patrol
8. Somebody Needs A Hug
9. Racing Bees
10. Don’t Mind Me
11. Oi! Division
12. Barbs
13. Nihilists
14. World Got Great

In addition to their slew of upcoming shows in Europe, Les Savy Fav have announced a handful of dates across the U.S. in the early summer.

Tour Dates:

05/16 – Brooklyn, NY – Music Hall of Williamsburg
05/24 – Dublin, IRE – Whelans
05/25 – Leeds, UK – Brudenell Social Club
05/28 – Barcelona, ESP – Primavera Sound
06/28 – Washington, DC – Black Cat
06/29 – Philadelphia, PA – Union Transfer
06/30 – Somerville, MA – Arts at the Armory
07/12 – Portland, OR – Revolution Hall
07/13 – Seattle, WA – Day in Day Out