For a band who never quite garnered the popular attention they deserved, experimentation would always be risky. Indeed, We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed (precursor to Romance is Boring) focused strongly on lyrical complexity and wordplay, one of Los Campesinos!’ strongest assets, whilst lacking in their other, their ability to create dark whilst euphoric dancefloor anthems.
“You’re pouting in your sleep/I’m waking still yawning/We’re proving to each other/That romance is boring”
Romance is Boring runs off on a different tack. The pretentions gone; the fun is back. The title track opens with an Oasis-ripped cocksure guitar and drum intro flowing almost immediately into the sing-a-long chorus of the year. From there the angular guitar returns, the syncopation, the words of disenfranchisement, apathy and inadequacy. The heavy aspect of Tom’s lead guitar balanced with Aleksandra’s more prominent vocals throughout the verses of the first few songs show a renewed confidence to change the structure of each composition without losing those founding principles the band adhered to. ‘We’ve Got Your Back’ is much more in the vein of Hold On Now, Youngster but now with an anger to add to the ecstasy, a bitterness which works with the tongue-in-cheek sound rather than limiting it whilst remaining distinctly Los Campesinos!.
“I’ve learned more from toilet walls/Than I’ve learned from these words of yours”
That, however, is the beginning of the album after which we reach a confused set of interludes which fly in all directions without developing much of what has already happened. There are the two minutes of Rolo Tomassi/Health headache which is ‘Plan A’ followed by less than a minute of instrumental guitar. It is a dramatic relief to hear “We need more post coital/and less post-rock” kick in with a firework display of a guitar riff and a joyous chorus chant which come together to form ‘Straight in at 101’; a song about sexual inexperience which gets you dancing in a way only Los Campesinos! could. Then, it is back to those songs which should have been edited, cut into others and reformed to make complete constructions rather than sounding like demos for what it is yet to come. Fifteen songs is a long album to pull off, even if you throw in the odd pointless one minute instrumental, and here it is a bit too obvious where the band have hit and where they have missed.
“At fourteen her mother died in a routine operation/from allergic reaction to a general anaesthetic/She spent the rest of her teens/Experimenting with prescriptions/in a futile attempt to know more than the doctors”
The end product, on the other hand, is well worth waiting for. From the depths of another mess of an intro, ‘I Just Sighed. I Just Sighed, Just So You Know’ brings together the sinister lyrics of loneliness, counterbalance of twinkling and stabbing guitar riffs and syncopated beat which then all settles, attacks again and settles in sequence. This leads into the album’s masterpiece, ‘The Sea Is A Good Place To Think Of The Future’. Here, the character creation developed well in the second album allows the exploration of anorexia, death and inferiority in the face of the world against a tidal rhythm section, swaying violin and sinisterly sing-song vocals. The comedy is still there, “so the landscape before you/looks just like the edge of the world/but to the left side and the right side/either way is a crazy golf course”, but it is laughing back at the chaos of creation.
“There are listed buildings, woe betide your listed heart”
Ultimately, this album is the progression which was necessary, not lacking in the great fun the band obviously have in creating their music but also offering them greater opportunity to explore all the dark things they want to deal with. It is a success in places and not in others but the essence which runs throughout is of a band with more maturity than many longer standing artists. Where it shines, it will shine in live performance and electrify audiences just as much as the dark moments will leave teenagers motionless in their bedrooms.
Romance Is Boring is released on 1/2/10 on Wichita Records.
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