When Los Campesinos first appeared on the pop radar with the Sticking Fingers Into Sockets EP four years ago, indie rock fans of all stripes got excited. Here was a band who was having fun, but Campesinos weren't just some sort of contrived corporate machination; their music was rooted in underground values, but had pristine pop hooks – and both got flaunted proudly with equal measure. Things got even better as a succession of releases (Hold On Now, Youngster and We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed) upheld the innocence of that first release and proved that the group wasn't just another band of opportunistic scenesters and, when they did grow up in one fell swoop with Romance Is Boring, they lost no fans because the growth on that album felt like a natural progression. In that moment, Los Campesinos became stars.
Everything was going perfectly – so of course something had to happen which would cast Los Campesinos' future into question. In August, 2011, it was announced that Campesinos' violinist, Harriet, would be leaving the group to resume her studies at school. The reception of the announcement was uncertain; Los Campesinos' had seen membership changes before (keyboardist Aleksandra had left and been replaced, as had drummer Ollie), but somehow this seemed more significant. Both critics and fans began to wonder what was to become of Los Campesinos.
Just seconds into Hello Sadness – the band's fourth LP and first without Harriet – fans will realize they needn't have worried about the status of the band following their turnover tribulations.
Now a little more wary and a little more petulant, Los Campesinos thunders back into action on Hello Sadness with “By Your Hand” and the results are spectacular. In spite of the uncertainty surrounding them, the band appears more assured right away, and relies less on nervous energy as they set up a dense wall of sound which leans more toward a nature, rock side of the spectrum and is more focused than any of the band's previous work. This change will have fans who have been with the band for a while interested, but everyone who hears it will hooked from the moment singer Gareth Campesinos utters the words “I was sitting on my hands/ on the top deck of the 1-7-8/ spitting curses in my face reflected in the windscreen pane/ Throwing insults, calling names – filthy are the messages you send through the day” before going on to tell a girl he loves her. That might sound confusing but, really, the excitement can be found less in what the singer is saying and more in how he's saying it; now four years and a tremendous amount of positive press into his career, Gareth is clearly confident enough to stand up in front of the band without leaning on another singer for support. For the first time, Gareth is allowing himself to be viewed as the center of attention in the band. This new focus actually works to the group's advantage because it allows the rest of the band to really start concentrating on their own instrumental parts; for the first time here, Ellen, Kim, Tom, Neil, Rob and Jason Campesinos get more adventurous in their performances and beef up the sound with a more “articulated accompaniment” bent over an “indie cacophony” one. The combination of those two sides is fantastic and riveting; when Gareth hurdles over the band to broadcast the words “I'm not sure if it's love anymore,” the effect feels like an epiphany because it seems like the band grew up and really came into their own in that moment and they wear it really, really well.
After “By Your Hand,” the thrills only get bigger as the record continues. In “Songs About Your Girlfriend” and the album's title track, Gareth adopts a vocal tone and demeanor similar to that of Robert Smith as he begins regularly telling people off (scan the “If you want a list of all the favorite bits, then next time I am free – quite comprehensively – I will scroll them all down for you as an apology” line from “Songs About Your Girlfriend” and the “It's only hope that springs eternal, and it's the reason why this dripping from my broken heart is never running dry” line from the title track) and apologizing at the same time in a tone which is as dismissive and sure as it is wounded and sweet. That tone and emotional delivery never really breaks at any point here but, by the time the band reaches “To Tundra,” they do slow down to let some genuine catharsis free before breaking down completely to close the record with “Light Leaves, Dark Sees Pt. II.” In that end, Gareth's voice veers pretty close to a begrudging apology, but the lyrics read like a genuine one as well as a reflection on past bad acts.
Without meaning to sound trite, what Hello Sadness represents for Los Campesinos is huge. Here, the singer manages to come off as appearing crestfallen and/or angry, but the band doesn't rush in to hide or diffuse it; they hang back to accentuate it and, in so doing, give listeners a look at the other side of the thematic coin they've been playing with for the last four years. It's a brave and dramatic shift, but could be seen as a necessary one too; after everything the band has done and been through over the last few years, Los Campesinos needed to show some depth, and Hello Sadness does that marvelously.
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Los Campesinos! – "By Your Hand" – Hello Sadness
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Hello Sadness comes out on November 15, 2011 via Arts & Crafts. Pre-order it here on Amazon .
When some bands get huge, it’s really fun and gratifying to watch because, while everyone that heard them before knew they were good, the chances of them breaking out and making a massive impression seemed so far removed that it’s actually a surprise when it happens and even more surprising when it doesn’t seem to phase the band or slow them down. Los Campesinos! is a great example of this; the Cardiff, Wales-based band came literally from nowhere with a remarkable EP that played like the sounds a bunch of very happy, hyperactive and emphatic (so many exclamation points!) kids might make in the attic of their parents’ house while on a play date. Relying heavily on the material from that wonderful , Los Campesinos’ debut full-length landed eight months later with only a hair less fun in the proceedings but a firmer idea of where the band was headed. Now, just thirty-three weeks after Hold on Now… Youngster hit and seventeen months after first appearing, the little band that could has released its second LP and it stands head and shoulders above Los Campesinos’ previous endeavors.
Instantly noticeable in the opening eruption of “Ways To Make It Through the Wall” is that while many of the sounds present in the song (boy-and-girl vocals bouncing off walls of strings, guitars and percussive effects) continue in the vein of the band’s previous releases, this time the effect is less novel and more apparently genuine as the motor-mouthed deliveries of singers Gareth and Aleksandra begin to function more as hooks and the band figures out how best to spotlight them without quieting down or backing off. The unbridled sonic joy that characterized the Sticking Fingers Into Sockets EP is still very much the driving force behind the album as well as the fantastic wordplay (early favorite example: “There’s future in the fucking, but there is no fucking future!” from the title track) that pokes out of the mixes to deliver the lines for fans to fall in love with but yields more diamonds to be unearthed by those really listening (like “My life was saved by a packet of nineteen cigarettes carried in my left breast pocket for a close friend.”) and thus feels like something incredibly special every time you find one.
This time, the album as a whole feels a little more self-assured and less nervous without taking away any of the energy as songs like “Miserabilia,” “You’ll Be Needing Those Fingers For Crossing,” “The End of the Asterisk” and “Heart Swells/Pacific Daylight Time” focus more on the joy that comes from knowing you’ve got a really great song while you’re playing it versus simply the joy of playing music in general. In that way, the songs on We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed hint at a sense of spontaneous growth and maturation; this time out, Los Campesinos! are certainly as joyful, critical, sarcastic and observant as they’ve been previously, but as the “newness” to what they’re doing has depreciated a little, so has the band’s propensity for spontaneous outbursts like there was previously on songs like “Don’t Tell Me To Do The Math(s)” Rather, what Beautiful, Doomed represents is Los Campesinos! getting comfortable in a most precarious position made attractive because they do it with such ease and grace. With We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed, Los Campesinos straddle the line quite steadily between goofy kicks and grown-up licks in a tight, brightly packaged gift that keeps on giving.
That is not to say, however, that the band has begun to lose its good humor and the DVD that accompanies Beautiful, Doomed illustrates that the fun in the songs is genuine and follows Los Campesinos offstage and around the world. Covering a weekend tour that finds them both in Germany and Japan, the footage contained on this self-shot DVD shows the band, presumably, as they are on a daily basis: enjoying the best imaginable way to travel around the world and sampling as much of what the experience has to offer as they’re able with a song in their hearts and on their lips that they’re lucky enough to belt out at thousands of people that beg for more. The band is aware of their fortune and it shows on their faces in the footage. Who wouldn’t love it? Los Campesinos present themselves as saying the exact same thing at every turn.
We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed comes out in North America on Arts & Crafts on November 25, 2008
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