After a novel side project, Born Ruffians’ Luke Lalonde is ready to get back to the success of Red, Yellow, Blue. And part of the success, before album sales and all the accolades that could come, is making sure the band itself is better than ever.

In a Progress Report with Stereogum from back in December 2009, Lalonde said that after non-stop touring in 2008, the band had reached a place where things had gotten tense. The album Say It, he said, is a reaction to the stress of a band and the desire to move past the in-band arguing.

“We had a therapeutic talk and put everything on the table,” Lalonde said. “We toured too much I think. A lot of stress within our band built up and got blown out of proportion. So Say It has a lot of lyrics about communication and the difficulties of articulating ideas … like I’ve had talking to you this whole time,” Lalonde continued. “That’s our new philosophy, to talk about things before they happen, so we know that we’re on the same page.”

And part of the conversation was also about their sound. They wondered why they loved and hated with equal fury different teen idols’ songs that were more or less the same. They thought about how popular songs stayed popular for so long and got excited about adding the sounds of the saxophone or mini-Moog. All that, and working with producer Rusty Santos (Animal Collective, Beach House, Grizzly Bear) led them to an album of pure polished pop magic.

“We don’t want to leave little mistakes on, we want to make it sound pretty clean and pop-music friendly,” Lalonde said. “We’re trying to make a hit record but in the most genuine way. We just want it to sound like us live … but better.”

You can download the album’s first single, “Sole Brother”, here. Say It is out May 31st via Warp Records.

Say It Tracklist:
01. Oh Man
02. Retard Canard
03. Sole Brother
04. What To Say
05. The Ballad Of Moose Bruce
06. Higher & Higher
07. Come Back
08. Nova-Leigh
09. Blood, The Sun & Water
10. At Home Now