There was a heaving, sweaty pile of indie landfill clogging up the airwaves during the mid-to-late ‘00s. You couldn’t breathe for deliberately specific lyrics, lo-fi keyboard lines, chinos and unkempt hairdos that took an hour to perfect. In 2017, a lot of those bands have fizzled out, changed course or just broken up. Los Campesinos!, though, have weathered the storm and clambered from the wreckage mostly unscathed.
Well, mostly unscathed. Maybe it’s the fact that their last release, 2013’s ‘No Blues’, was arguably the perfect Los Campesinos! template, building on a raft of swelling synths to craft a, *cough*, more mature sound, a bit like Snow Patrol covering the Smiths. Maybe it’s the fact that the songs on their sixth LP, ‘Sick Scenes’, just aren’t as strong as they could be. But there's wear and tear here, among a clutch of highlights.
It’s not like the band have traded in their clothes and started dressing like the Wombats circa-now, singing about emojis or whatever-the-fuck. There’s still plenty of Los Campesinos!’s twee, poppy indie-rock to be had here, especially during the first half.
Sad Suppers’ chorus is dragged out, but not in a boring way; it’s dragged out like Play Doh, leading into a guitar solo that’s 0% self-indulgent and in keeping with the song’s overall aesthetic, like a Rivers Cuomo throwaway. It’s solemn yet sunshiny.
Gareth Campesinos!’s lovelorn and ludicrous lyrics, meanwhile, tie everything together in an accessible package. They might seem like like Mighty Boosh quotes to passers-by (“A Peloton of OAPS cycling up behind me,” on 5 Flucloxacillin) but they’re heartbroken, tormented confessions of messy nights and internal fights to those better acquainted with his writing.
He’s got that sarcastic, holier-than-thou drawl associated with some of those crap acts doing the rounds when Los Campesinos! first sprung up, but there’s a knowingness to his tone that makes it more real and less a soundtrack for shopping in Topman. I Broke Up In Amarante is a self-loathing document of battling mental health issues with booze and it’s honestly, genuinely sad.
But for all of its high points, for all of the scattergun hand-clapping and jangly riffing, for all of Kim Campesinos!’s twinkly keys and gorgeous vocals, ‘Sick Scenes’ occasionally slithers into questionable territory during its second act. Got Stendhal’s is the sole track exceeding the five-minute mark and, mate, it shows. Moments work – namely Kim’s lines – but it’s a sombre, downtrodden track that just doesn’t possess those hooks we heard on ‘No Blues’, those hooks we know the band are capable of applying. For Whom The Belly Tolls is a great pun, too, but chorus aside, the weight of expectation crushes it dead.
‘Sick Scenes’ starts and ends very, very strongly. Or bigly, as the ruler of the free world might say. Renato Dall’Ara (2008) sets out its stall with sugar-coated, fun-spattered feistiness. Hung Empty, meanwhile, picks up the pace after the halftime lull, culminating with both Gareth and Kim asking, “What if this is how we die?”. It's a morbid, open-ended question to finish on, but such is the nature of Los Campesinos!. They’ve never been your normal indie-rock band, and even when they don’t get it completely right, it’s still more satisfying to listen to than most of the other shit out there.
Los Campesinos Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows:
Thu April 27 2017 - LIVERPOOL Arts Club
Fri April 28 2017 - GLASGOW Stereo
Sat April 29 2017 - SHEFFIELD Queens Social Club
Sun April 30 2017 - NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE Cluny
Mon May 01 2017 - LONDON KOKO
Fri May 05 2017 - BRIGHTON Haunt
Sat May 06 2017 - NORWICH Arts Centre
Sun May 07 2017 - BIRMINGHAM Hare And Hounds
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