"Home Is Where the Hurt Is" Released: September 12, 2023
A Beautiful Blur[1] is the fifth studio album by American alternative rock duo LANY. Released on September 29, 2023, through Sunset Garden and Virgin, it is the follow-up to 2021's gg bb xx,[2] their first album for Virgin since departing from Polydor, and their first album without keyboardist/guitarist Leslie Priest.
Background and development
The writing for the album came after Les Priest's departure. Priest had become less involved with the band over time, and in an interview for Hypebeast, Paul Klein stated, "To be super honest, it hasn't changed at all. We support Les and everything that he does, and obviously, he has given us his blessing to continue on in this band. The first album, we made it just the three of us in a kitchen on a Dell computer. Les was kind of our engineer, less of a traditional keyboardist. Over the next few albums, we began working with people who were older and wiser, and we learned from them. Really, the only thing that has changed was who was behind the computer." After the band had fulfilled their record contract with Universal/Polydor, they decided not to resign, stating it gave the band more creative freedom and time to write and record their next album.[3]
Promotion
The album was announced on 29 May 2023 via posts on social media, followed by the first single "Love at First Fight".[4] To promote the album, the band announced a European and an Asian tour.[5][6]
On September 18, the band officially announced that they had changed the album name from I Really Really Hope So to A Beautiful Blur, stating the album's title was originally A Beautiful Blur, and also changed the album art.
A small promotional and acoustic tour was announced on 25 September 2023, through the US, entitled "A Beautiful Blur *IRL".[7]
