The Fleet Foxes have announced their new album, Helplessness Blues, will be released on May 3, a feat they’re commemorating with a show at the Moore Theatre in Seattle.

They had a little presale/preorder package going this morning, where you could pre-purchase the album and tickets to the Moore show, but the supply of presale tickets predictably didn’t last long. (FYI, in other indie crush news, the New Pornographers have also announced a spring tour, sans Seattle or Portland or Vancouver.) The Foxes’ tour actually begins in Vancouver on April 30, then they zip down to Portland on May 1 (socialist!), before returning to Seattle on the 3rd.

Sub Pop has the title track, “Helplessness Blues,” available for streaming or download. They also inform you that:

---

Helplessness Blues was recorded over the course of a year at Avast Recording, Bear Creek Studios, Dreamland Studios, and Reciprocal Recording. The album was recorded and mixed by Phil Ek and co-produced by Fleet Foxes and Ek. The piece that appears on the album cover was illustrated by Seattle artist Toby Liebowitz and painted by Chris Alderson. Fleet Foxes is Robin Pecknold, Skyler Skjelset, Christian Wargo, Casey Wescott, Josh Tillman, and Morgan Henderson.

On Twitter (I think it’s mostly Pecknold), the band reflects on the trials of hirsute musical perfectionism. I’ll assemble the relevant tweets for your reading pleasure:

---

So weird to see people react to something that was only heard by seven dudes for almost a year. I wonder how the full record fares. Well, at least my mom likes it. Excited to get this thing released and to start working on new music as much as possible – the three years w/o new music was HELL! With this behind us, it’ll be great to explore and experiment in new avenues and hopefully release way more frequently. Just sayin. I should start doing something with a more objective measure of quality. Like the 100 yard dash. You’re fast, or you’re not fast. No opinions. That sounds pretty chill. http://bit.ly/9MwLu4