Album Review: Los Campesinos! – Hold On Now, Youngster

Hello and welcome to “Club Indier Than Thou”, with tonight’s guest semi-stars, Los Campesinos! Let’s run through a few house rules, starting with the most important: guitars are always, always better than synths. Please don’t question the house rules. Secondly, having chart success is inherently suspect. You wouldn’t want an Oasis fan whistling your favourite song, after all, then you’d have to find a new one. Next: try to avoid expressing direct, honest emotions, but if you can’t, then please cloak them in convoluted wordplay. And remember not knowing Spacemen 3 is punishable by a four hour lecture on ’80s post-punk.

Right, that should cover it: have a good night. Well, a mediocre night with shades of world weary ennui, but you know what I mean. Or, as Liam Gallagher might put it: fucking students, which is exactly what the Welsh seven-piece were until last year. For all the abundant virtues of Los Campesinos! – their energy, their vivacity, their obvious and audible love of what they do – it’s hard to sit through all of “Hold On Now, Youngster” without feeling like you’re trapped in a parody of lo-fidelity, high IQ indiedom.

Irritating name with even more irritating punctuation? Tick. Eighteen word song titles and references to stationery, Jane Eyre, K Records, communist Russia, parentheses and obscurantist paradise All Tomorrow’s Parties? Present and correct. Scratchy guitars, cutesy pie glockenspiels, jerky rhythms, yelping vocals and a horribly played violin? You’ve come to the right place! But two things save Los Campesinos! from being utterly insufferable.

The first is that many of these songs are such fun, hurtling from the speakers in a blur of fuzzy guitars, big shouty choruses and smart vocal jousting between singers Gareth and Alexsandra. “Death To Los Campesinos!” is a terrific start, its zig zag guitar riff only just holding together a bundle of melodies and ideas, while “Broken Hearts Sound Like Breakbeats” roars in with the pace, throbbing bass and exuberance of the Pixies in their experimental “Surfer Rosa” period. And the brilliantly titled “You! Me! Dancing!” may be a minor classic, thanks to its vibrant, irrepressible riff and longing melodies. Duds (like the arthritic “…And we exhale”) are rare.

The second saving grace is that Los Campesinos! have the brains to back up their smart arse attitude. For every smug lyric like “We’re gonna smash this place up then decorate it with fairy lights”, there’s a genuinely striking image like “Second hand bookshop employees reading inscriptions that were never meant for their eyes” (both from the stuttering, manic “Don’t Tell Me To Do The Math(s)”). But are they bright enough to realise that all the knowing references and hipster posturing are only getting in the way of their obvious, bright-eyed talent? We’ll have to wait for the second album for the answer to that one.

Los Campesinos! – You! Me! Dancing! DOWNLOAD | LISTEN

by Jaime Gill

Tagged as: Album Review, Los Campesinos