Our highest scoring Welsh act. Until Duffy’s new one drops, anyway…
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[6.88]
Renato Pagnani: They say that they’d do it for love were it not for the money, but they’re already doing it out of love—the urgent melodies, how the guy’s vocals waver and almost crack when he tries to go for gold, the way the drums sometimes seem buried beneath the joyous mess, emerging at other times as the song’s propulsive lynchpin, the ambiguous but evocative (the right kind of ambiguous!) lyrics. The money’s just a bonus.
[7]
Ian Mathers: Look, I’m sick and tired of defending these guys; everything about them, from the manic (and lately sometimes manic-depressive) music to the lyrics to the, I don’t know, mindset is a love-or-hate-it proposition, and I signed on to the love side a while back. They have yet to disappoint me. Isn’t that worth something?
[8]
Iain Mew: This is full of Los Campesinos! staples. It’s busy as anything but somehow remains coherent, with more great hooks than ought to be possible in three minutes. They retain a real knack for using music as dramatic sonic punctuation to their lyrics, and those are as individualistic and inventive as ever. After the emotional pyrotechnics of “The Sea is A Good Place to Think of the Future”, though, a song that’s as reliably fine as this is actually… a touch disappointing?
[7]
Hillary Brown: This is fine in many ways, but it feels as though it’s striving hard for an unhinged joy that it never really achieves. Sure, it’s a bit of a mess, and it’s kind of fast and varied, but the pieces of this and that don’t add up to anything.
[5]
Alex Wisgard: After the curveball of their last ‘single’, the first release proper from their new album sees them back with the kind of effortlessly energetic anthem that they could probably write in their sleep. Fitting, then, that “…Listed Buildings” sounds so much like Death Cab For Cutie’s “The Sound of Settling”; this is very much the sound of a band who are aware of what they’re good at, but know how to keep it interesting. Hence, the chorus’s glorious bursts of brass, the slightly askew time signatures, and Gareth’s pseudo-Woody Allen neuroticisms hitting a new peak, as he recalls “being naked to my waist, but not in which direction…” (Oh, and a footnote – this would have lost two points had I not been informed that the first line is in fact “You glug and you glug” rather than “You blog and you blog”; that would have just been a step too far…)
[8]
Anthony Miccio: Their obvious love for ’90s indie-pop makes their anxiousness more palatable than that of most frustrated folk their age, but that might just be generational bias. And even at their peppiest, I’m never caught up in the drama. If only a producer would goad them to highlight a more emotional hook than the true-enough title and “ba-ba.”
[6]
Mallory O’Donnell: There are appealing, everything-but-the-oftmentioned-sink qualities to songs by Los Campensinos! But I still feel like much of their off-kilter clatter has been heard before, and the song titles smack uncomfortably of snide old indie. However, there is strong musicality and energy here and quite a potential for this band to develop a real, original voice. Keep at it, lads.
[5]
Alex Ostroff: While it was nice to hear Gareth and the gang expanding their musical palette, it’s a relief to know that Romance is Boring won’t be bereft of sing-along chants and pulsing basslines. Joyful melodies and morose lyrics are married once more, even if they no longer tend towards the wry and winking. As it did in “The Sea…” water looms large — no longer a means of suicide, but a pond in which the object of Gareth’s affections fishes for everything but him. He’ll desperately take the bait, and she’ll hook him despite herself, a glutton for love and sin. Atheists in lust certainly make their own luck, but they of all people should know that transgression and guilt are equally artificial. We live in prisons (and listed buildings) of our own choosing, and are forced to maintain them by habit and circumstance. Unhealthy though it might be to reject growth and change, the penalty for altering them is simply too high.
[9]