Los Campesinos! Album: “Hold on Now, Youngster”

I'll keep this short and sweet -- HOLD ON NOW, YOUNGSTER has some great hooks and the vocals are fast and furious. The two singers make each song unique. Great little bursts of singing (see "This is how you spell..." for an example).

I've been enjoying this on my long car rides up the NJ Turnpike and it keeps that drab landscape interesting. Favorite tracks: 2, 3, 5, 9.

I heard this song "You, Me, Dancing" on a tv commercial and I had to have it. This band has a Spanish name but they are all from Wales. The CD is just great. Almost every song on the CD is really good! I was very pleased to get this CD and I am looking at their other CD's as well now. I just love this band!!!

I live slightly off the radar so I have not been overtaken by indie media overload with this stuff. So what can I say? Influences? Bis, Pavement, Belle and Sebastian, and any number of poppy punk bands before that meant Green Day. Sprawling, sloppy, and inventive in a very precise way. They throw it all at the wall and it sticks. The lyrics are very smart, the mood infectious, and the girl/boy vocal interplay keeps things alive. This stuff lifts you up with its rough and sweet riffs, feeds your arty side with odd instrumental touches and makes you chuckle with its smart turns of phrase and witty asides. I may be outside the demographic and it runs a little long, I like this easily over anything I hear on the radio. So I'm in...bring on more! One of my favorites of 08!

I have no doubt that Los Campesinos! have put out the best music over the last 18 months or so, but to collect it all you have to buy not just this album but lots of other little EPs and singles and assorted nonsense. And getting the follow-up album is going to be a mess. Probably this just reflects the intersection of their falling-all-over-themselves exuberance and productivity with their amateur ethic. 'Cause it couldn't have anything to do with maximizing revenue. Right?

Ok, that out of the way, the music: Great. Seriously, I can't make sense of the negative reviews here that complain about suckiness or messiness or shoddiness or whatever except to say that it must reflect the fact that this music aims at both what I'm sufficiently non-youngsterish to still call the post-punk audience and what the youngsters would probably laugh at me for calling the "emo" audience or twee-pop or whatever. Given that this is probably the most polished music I've listened to in a long, long time, those reviews are clearly coming from a very different planet, and so I leave them to themselves.

But for those of you who think that post-punk smarts, sarcasm and enthusiasm work better when they engage the world than when they run away from it, who think that carving your revolutionary practice out of teen magazines reflects more organic intellectual effort than carving it out of the Guardian or Mother Jones (not that they don't read those too), and especially for those of you who think the ramshackle ethos works best when it's the product of a large, anarchic collective pulling in seven directions at once rather than the default mode of the lazy and feckless, then this is the music you've been waiting for.

Sure they're not as smart as they want to be, or even think they are. Their fusion of scenesterism and genuine love of what they do falls apart a few times. And their avowed hopelessness isn't very convincing coming from white, over-educated, attractive kids who know too much to take their sincerity at face value. In fact their self-conscious silliness can get cloying. But no one is playing around with these contradictions---which are crucial ones---more effectively and enjoyably than they are. Every time they hit that first long organ note in "My Year in Lists" (go listen to the video on Y*uT*be) or let their limbs flail when they dance, I want to sell myself to them for life. Good thing they haven't sold enough records yet to be able to afford me.

So, yeah, best of the year. Get it. And track down "International Tweexcore", the Heavenly cover, and "We Throw Parties, You Throw Knives" as well.

If you keep up with the hype-mongering indie rock blogs and sites out there, then you're probably familiar with the name Los Campesinos! The band, formed just barely 2 years ago in Cardiff, Wales, has been making the rounds, so to speak; drawing rave reviews from almost every music publication that has had the opportunity to hear their music. Sporting a distinct "we don't give a f*** what our music sounds like" attitude, Los Campesios!'s music is lo-fi, messy, raw, punk-influenced indie rock that is just as plagued with missed notes and shoddy performances as it is with genuinely awesome sounds that are either squandered or shot to hell by all the other nonsense that is going on. No, I'm not going to be hopping on the Los Campesinos! bandwagon any time soon, which is unfortunate because the exclamation points would make much more sense if I did.

The band released their Sticking Fingers Into Sockets EP a few months back, and to be completely honest, it wasn't that bad. I found the band to be unique, catchy, and a lot of fun to listen to. Call me crazy, but perhaps it's the small dose of Los Campesinos! that made that EP much more enjoyable than this album. From the very first second, the band is out to assault your ear drums with obnoxiously loud and messy instrumentation, vocals that aren't anywhere close to being in key, and an audio mix that screams "Hey, check out what we were able to do with just one $5 computer mic and a copy of Windows Sound Recorder!" They rarely let up, and even when they do, they are more than happy to break the silence with more of the same nonsense.

That's not to say that Los Campesinos! is a flat-out terrible band. On the contrary, I find them to be highly talented and entertaining despite their more notable flaws. The instrumentation, though unpolished and far too cluttered, is actually very good when taken in individual parts. The guitars, for example, are almost always a blast to listen to. Background vocals and shouts are perfectly presented and a welcomed addition. The problem with everything lies when the band tries to do too much. Just because there are 64 tracks at your disposal doesn't mean you have to put every one of them to use! Even, "You! Me! Dancing!," with it's wonderfully catchy sound just becomes too much to handle by the time Tom (or is it Garreth) Campesinos begins hurriedly talking over the chorus. What's the point? Sure what he's saying it somewhat funny, but musically it doesn't make sense. Why squander a decent song with something that is completely out of place?

I understand that Los Campesinos! probably isn't shooting for the same aesthetic that I'd like for them to put forth. That's fine with me. In fact, there are several songs on Hold On Now, Youngster... that I'm more than okay with. The aforementioned "You! Me! Dancing!" is one of them, as is the loud, yet sweet, "Don't Tell Me to Do the Math(s)," with its varying styles and levels of momentum. Likewise, "Drop It Doe Eyes" is so fun and catchy that I've found myself listening to it on repeat out of sheer joy! Of course the album's best song is also its first (never a good sign). "Death to Los Campesinos!" has been around for a while, so such a thing makes sense. It's also the album's most polished track. However, despite this handful of good songs, the total package that is Hold On Now, Youngster... just seems to disappoint. Whether it's because of the true lack of diversity on the album, or just the flaws of the vocalists that go from "real and charming" to "a god-awful annoyance," I haven't yet figured out.

Maybe I just don't "get it." I'm almost positive that the band puts on an amazing live show (I mean, they have to, right?) and that the basis of their appeal lies in their ability to convey the madness of their music to a live audience. My lack of ability to fully embrace Hold On Now, Youngster... as a quality piece of music probably has a lot to do with the fact that I haven't experienced such an event. While, I sure would love to, all I have to judge Los Campesinos! on at this point is an album that is decidedly over-hyped and disappointing. The band is young, talented, and they have a lot of room to grow into something that is more generally appealing. Until that time, however, I'm left with a quirky letdown of an album; one that I'll soon forget about and place on my CD shelf right next to Clap Your Hands Say Yeah's debut album, where an uncertain future of dust and gloom await.

Key Tracks:

1. "Death to Los Campesinos!"

2. "Don't Tell Me to Do the Math(s)"

3. "Drop It Doe Eyes"

4. "You! Me! Dancing!"

6 out of 10 Stars