Los Campesinos!, Romance Is Boring
Another bubbly yet full-bodied orchestral pop triumph from the biggest twee band going
No description of Los Campesinos! could be as fitting as the New Pornographers' song title "Testament to Youth in Verse." The exuberance of this Welsh seven-piece is such that they've evolved from blog-hopping one-song-buzzers ("You! Me! Dancing!" off a sugar-rush EP that still remains the finest way to gulp their ADHD aesthetic), to the artisans behind three orchestral full-lengths in just three years. Most importantly, their exciting, multi-layered music (violin, glockenspiel, trombone, ba-bas) skirts twee with energy and counters the adolescent melodrama they pretend with wit and empathy.
So it's a testament to youth in verse that their third, slowest record is yet another great one. The dissonant, minor-key bridges they've just discovered are a wonderful out from the constancy of their needlepoint melodies, gearing you back up for another shout about buried feelings or banal romance or spiteful diary pages. They've toned down the glockenspiel just as you were getting sick of it. And the ambitious, whistle-hooked "The Sea Is a Good Place to Think of the Future" justifies their new propensity for crawling epics with yarns like "You could never kiss a Tory boy/ Without wanting to cut off your tongue again."
Not that they've run out of anthems yet — the sticky title tune may be no "Death to Los Campesinos!" or "Ways to Make it through the Wall," but that has more to do with its uncharacteristic crunch channeling Hole or the Darkness. Besides, a band to trust is one that's quick to call out the boring. With seven of them to keep watch, I don't see that setting into their music anytime soon.
