09.25.08
It’s not for the cock, it’s for the being doomed
Los Campesinos!- “We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed”
About nine months ago, this welsh based seven piece released their debut album to what was a very positive, semi cult response, if not a transformation into mega stars. Their first album, “Hold On Now Youngster…”, and the following months, may have not seen them come crashing home smothered in hype whilst being crammed involuntarily into our mouths, but did in fact build up quite an impressive, dedicated fan base.
The decision of releasing “We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed” so quickly is quite an odd one. It’s something that’s pretty unprecedented in modern music and yet focuses the attention even more on whether it holds up to previous outings.
Initially, at least, the band start the album kicking and screaming in a whirlpool of colour and a brilliant concoction of instruments. First track, “Ways To Make It Through The Wall”, starts with a choppy, unbalanced mixture of shouty girl/boy vocals, the odd blast of violin and fizzy guitars before breaking out into a glorious chorus. So far so very good with the classic Los Campesinos! formula being squeezed to pop perfect results.
The run of songs at the start of the album is very strong and, in particular, “We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed” is an explosion that rockets around, dips and soars whilst a set of fantastic, typically cynical-equally as funny, lyrics paint their way over the top.
However, after the initial blast of the opening tracks, the album unfortunately begins to lose pace a little bit. “You’ll Need Those Fingers For Crossing” is almost the poppy yet down beat epic that it wants to be, but never quite reaches the climax that it hints at. “The End of The Asterik”, meanwhile, sounds like a lesser band striving to recreate the past brilliance of Los Campesinos!. With the overly twee pop chorus and the fact that it basically goes nowhere, this song sees the band lacking ideas and direction for the first time in, well, ever really.
“Documented Minor Emotional Breakdown #7” does, however, claw it back a little. With great production letting the band’s more radio friendly moments fly free, it is a short burst of fresh air in an otherwise fairly stagnant second half of the album.
“We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed” is by no means a bad album, it’s just when placed against the band’s excellent debut (which is inevitably going to be the case) it seems to stagger slowly to a stop rather than leave you wanting more. The bands first album was full of genuinely great songs and had a eyebrow raising lack of filler whereas a lot of “We Are Beautiful…” sounds like half baked ideas. This is a huge tragedy considering, when they really get down to it and let their potential really flow, Los Campesinos! can be an incredible band with invigorating and refreshing talent. It’s hard to say this about a long time personal and blog favourite, but If they had shortened this album to an EP, it could have been one of the releases of the year but, sadly, this is just not the case.