Romance Is Boring - Los Campesinos!

Romance is Boring

Los Campesinos!
Arts & Crafts Records.

SCQ Rating: 72%

Well, the hangover was bound to come at some point. After two rapid-fire releases that first established Los Campesinos! as undergrad pranksters (Hold On Now, Youngster) then self-destructive deviants (We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed), it seemed appropriate that LP3 would find the Wales-based seven-piece anchoring their lovelorn lyrics and cathartic outbursts to increasingly grayer rainclouds. And anchor they have; there are moments on Romance Is Boring so lushly defeatist, you’d swear Gareth Campesino! and his bandmates were throwing themselves overboard. First single ‘The Sea Is a Good Place To Think Of the Future’ hinted at great things, covering all the bleak observations that serrated their earlier record’s good humour but embracing that genius sans irony, and by the close of first song ‘In Medias Res’, you’ll wish you could hand-wrap, mail and share this record with that one girl or guy you easily could’ve landed with had you both just been vulnerable enough at the same time.

After such a brilliantly messy, heart-stopping opener, it’s almost a shame that the whole of Romance Is Boring is equally unbalanced. For every track that represents a stepping-stone for the seven-piece band in terms of songwriting or musicianship, there’s a brief regression into the band’s frantic indie-pop fare. The woozy, orchestral beauty of ‘Who Fell Asleep In’ – a Los Campesinos! track unlike any other – is followed by the noisy ‘I Warned You Do Not Make An Enemy Of Me’ which rifles through chords with hapless abandon, just as the edgy verses of the title track devolve into the predictable schoolyard vocal lines that characterized Hold On Now, Youngster. Their transformation into fatalistic, too-emotional-for-emo songwriters ends up stealing the show on Romance Is Boring, unintentionally rendering its upbeat material phoned-in by comparison. After two albums of caffeine-addled rock so jubilant Gareth had to squeeze his lyrics in as if his band wouldn’t wait for him, it’s exciting to hear them sobering to the realities of age and, well, sobriety, and adjusting their song structures to be more spacious, more fulfilling. Romance Is Boring tries to have it both ways, honouring their indie-pop fanbase while wallowing in a richer, textural sound. And while it doesn’t all iron out into one cohesive record, it does make a convincing case that we’ve pinned Los Campesinos! strengths entirely upside-down.

We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed - Los Campesinos!

We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed

Los Campesinos!
Arts & Crafts Records.

SCQ Rating: 86%

As I settled into my subway nook after a long day, I glanced down at the Los Campesinos! album in my hand and thought “why now?”. After all, their debut Hold On Now, Youngster… made soaring waves in the blogosphere this past Spring and sported several hot tracks (some of which reincarnated from their 2007 EP), whereas this new release, We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed, slid quietly into an unusually late release date, bearing no singles, and advertised as a digital-only purchase on Amazon, I-Tunes, etc. So what made me bite this time around? The awareness that this Welsh band has evolved beyond its meager twee-ness into something far less predictable; an authentic pop-punk crossbreed that hoists the best of each genre’s attributes – melodic sensibilities and sneering aggression – then torches them together.

Through the half-hour therapy-session that We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed encapsulates, Los Campesinos! place their devil-may-care approach on the brink with ten anti-love songs that are infectious despite some thoroughly depressing topics. From discovering your lusted ex-lover making out with someone to the soundtrack of your favourite band in the background to drunk-dialing girls at 4am, this is lyrical masturbation at its most disaffected:

“I have broken down into the naked breasts
of a newly ex (no dignity)
I can only guess that she thinks about it
When she touches herself.
Shout at the world because the world doesn’t love you.
Lower yourself because you know that you’ll have to.”

It sounds damn embarrassing but the musicality imbedding these words makes it nothing short of celebratory. Coming from the band that only eight months ago titled a song ‘This is How You Spell: HAHAHA, We Destroyed the Hopes and Dreams of a Generation of Faux-Romantics!’, which instinctively made me respond “This is How You Spell: Kill Me Now”, this second album finds the Cardiff graduates putting their clumsy texts away and writing from the heart.

Perhaps the most striking WTF about this new Campesinos! outing is that recording began around a few unassuming b-sides, before flourishing into the ten sophomore-ready songs presented here. Lord knows how almost-lovesong ‘You’ll Need Those Fingers for Crossing’ or raucous ‘Ways to Make it Through the Wall’ could possibly originate from scrapped ideas, but regardless, the seven-strong band stretch from punk-infused bombast on the title track to static-laden waltzes (‘Heart Swells/Pacific Daylight Time’) and Pavement swaggers (‘It’s Never That Easy Though, Is It?’). When their songcraft dips in the least, it’s the fuzzy intermission of ‘The End of the Asterisk’ – likely that b-side in question – or the ho-hum finish of ‘All Your Kayfabe Friends’, which is serviceable on its own but faintly insignificant as far as massive finales go. This record deserves one.

It’s a compliment to Arts & Crafts that the last time I heard an indie-rock record this chockfull of ideas was Broken Social Scene in 2005. The parallels are notable, seeing Los Campesinos! climb closer to the riotous volumes and immaculate production of their label’s flagship band. We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed is a rare case where everything (the band’s views on love, records and hopelessness, Arts & Crafts’ support, lunar cycles, etc.) joins seamlessly to showcase a band at their most contagiously liberating. Miss this at your own peril.