On their MySpace, Welsh pop-rockers Los Campesinos! list American stalwarts Wilco, Yo La Tengo and Pavement as primary influences. But rather than troubadors like Jeff Tweedy or Ira Kaplan, their new release Romance Is Boring more evokes their upbeat contemporaries. And it works. Mostly.
Romance cements Los Campesinos! as unabashed acolytes of the modern, upbeat brand of indie rock. They mirror the bouncy synths and ringing glockenspiels of the Shout Out Louds and echo the Arctic Monkeys’ brash energy and super-Britsh accents. Hell, they even have a Sufjan-esque song title: “A Heat Rash in the Shape of the Show Me State; Or, Letters from Me to Charlotte.” Who knows—maybe they’ll finish Stevens’ “50 States” project for him.
The Cardiff, Wales group—whose name translates from Spanish as “The Peasants!”—is comprised of seven members, four male and three female, all of whom adopt Campesinos! as a last name. Cheeky.
The best songs on Romance take advantage of the co-ed nature. The title track, a blistering denunciation of affectionate relationships, is an argument between the two vocalists. The song transitions into an acidic chorus: “You’re pouting in your sleep/I’m waking, still yawning/We’re proving to each other that romance is boring!” So much sexual angst from a band that pretends to be a family!
At times, Romance indulges too much in zaniness: “Plan A” is an incoherent mess, and the two songs running under a minute, “200/102” and “Heart Swells/100-1” are unnecessary and overly punctuated. Los Campesinos! may never measure up to the bands they mirror, but Romance Is Boring suggests they have mastered the art of imitation. And that’s all right.
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