Los Campesinos! ‘We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed’

Aren’t bands young nowadays? Los Campesinos! look so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed they make the Olsen twins resemble grizzled Motorhead roadies. The music is similarly energetic; dreamy indiepop thrashes as lively as a sparkler in a pool of petrol that could get even the most comatose octogenarian jigging along in remembrance of the halcyon days of their misspent youth. Part of you feels confused, the rest delighted.

It’s been barely eight months since the release of the Super-Furries-reflected-in-a-funhouse-mirror debut from Los Campesinos!, but this speedy follow-up isn’t a clutch of half-baked studio leftovers or a reckless exercise in wanton experimentia – instead, it’s the sound of a band growing into their idiosyncracies as they embrace their musical wanderlust. The band originally entered the studio to make an EP, but bounced out shortly after with an entire album – no mean feat and evidence that the youthful exuberance of their music is matched by their workrate. The feisty boy-girl interaction of Gareth and Aleks Campesinos! is still integral to the overall sound, and both singers have succeeded in crafting engaging observations of modern life/love that are sure to soundtrack a future episode of Skins where they all go to the Haribo factory and sprinkle angel dust in the Starmix.

From the first note to the last, the seven-piece’s heady cocktail of synths, violins, and itchy guitar bluster pogos out of the speakers with a deranged jubilance, a sugar-coated one-two of joypop pugilism. No refined coyness or arch artifice here – it’s all spiky buoyance and route-one melodies that break through waxy build-ups to gleefully pound your ear drums. ‘Miserabilia’ is an early highlight, boasting layers of beautiful, addictive guitar melody that are grabbed by the collar and driven by a pounding synth line, eventually splintering into a spine-tingling violin outburst so heart-warming that it could coaxe Bambi’s mum back to life well before the final chorus. Album centrepiece, ‘You’ll Need Those Fingers For Crossing’ is another highlight, building into a slowburn swell of yearning that serves as a testament to the band’s expanding horizons. Same goes for the sweet and tender ‘Heart Swells/Pacific Daylight Time’.

And yet…and yet…some of the songs simply sail wide of the mark. ‘The End Of The Asterisk’ is an annoying ice-cream headache of aimless energy, and ‘It’s Never That Easy Though, Is It? (Song For The Other Kurt)’ features an irritatingly squelchy synth-line that’ll make you spit crisps all down your front. But in the main these are minor quibbles, the majority of ‘We Are Beautiful…’ is a fantastically plastic celebration of those heady years of fun before reality kicks in and you have to go and get a job. Picasso once said that “every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once you grow up”, Los Campesinos! have responded with the courage of their convictions and yielded to no trends other than the ones they set for themselves. Commendable, but the jury’s still out on whether the world will listen…