Los Campesinos! – Romance Is Boring
In the past, Los Campesinos! have been a frustrating band.
In the past couple of years, the indie pop seven-piece have released a couple of albums that have bordered on being great but just missing out for the same reason. Hold On Now, Youngster… had some exhilarating songs such as Knee Deep At ATP and Sweet Dreams, Sweet Cheeks were energy at near-euphoric levels, but it was all a little bit too much, not giving you room to breathe. It’s like when you’re trying to keep up with the pace of someone who is much faster than you when running and suddenly the fact that you’re much more unfit and pathetic causes you to feel sick in shame. Follow-up album We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed suffered from the same problem.
So upon the arrival of Romance Is Boring, one would hope for some variety in their sound that allows them to break up the album pace and give their music some much needed new dynamics. It is therefore incredibly pleasing to say that they have indeed managed to find said new dynamics. Their desire to move away from ‘twee’ indie pop and into more concentrated, measured, and carefully structured songs are a natural progression and fit in well with the old trademark yelps and breakneck tempos.
And what’s more, the majority of the songs on Romance Is Boring are astonishingly good.
The album starts off with In Media Res, which is neither a 200mph burst of fiery indie nor a cutesy and adorable ballad, but somewhere in the middle of both. It’s a mid-tempo song that sounds more like a fanfare than anything else, a desire to show people what they have learnt. After this lenghty (well, by Los Campesinos! standards anyway) opener, it is straight into There Are Listed Buildings with some of the most poppy melodies the band have ever written. These kind of contrasts are often-repeated on the LP but it never gets any less exciting for this.
Romance Is Boring is showcasing a band that has been desperate to move on with their musical career, and they done so in glorious style. They’ve just gotten better at every single aspect: the songwriting is sharper, the lyrics are wittier and talk about anything and everything including the frustration at how long post-rock songs take to get going, and their palette is beginning to widen. What is perhaps most glorious though is that Los Campesinos! have finally delivered an album that justifiably shows why they are adored by lovers of indie all across the land, even more impressive when you consider the LP is nearly fifty minutes long. Romance may be boring, but this Welsh-based are certainly anything but.
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Posted on February 3rd, 2010 by Max
Filed under: Albums, Reviews
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