Painting titled Portrait of a Boy in a Green Suit by Sheldon Peck, 1828
I wanted to write about Romance Is Boring sooner - it's been out for a couple months now, which makes my opinion now even less relevant - but a couple things have been holding me back. First, the music made by Welsh brat-rockers Los Campesinos! is very dense, lyrically and (as of this album) musically as well, so it can take a while to get a feel for the whole album. Second, the band has made an album this time around that is even harder than usual to get into, although it does reward patient, repeated listens.
One funny thing about writing about an album a couple months late is that I have an impulse to respond to the other reviews out there - often, I feel a need to defend the band against its detractors, even if I agree with them to some degree. For instance, the AV Club said that Romance Is Boring would make a better EP than an LP, and I think this goes back to the point about how dense this music is for twee pop. But the fact that the first five tracks by themselves would make a great stand-alone EP - from the roaring-out-of-the-gate (and appropriately titled) "In Medias Res" to the spastic but brief "Plan A" - indicates that the problem may be overload more than working with an album packed with filler. In fact, the second half of the album is arguably more interesting than the first (although I'm always saying that).
The review in Allmusic calls the album a let-down, placing the blame at the feet of Garth Campesinos, who wrote the lyrics, and Tom Campesinos, who wrote the music. This is kind of true, but not (as Allmusic alleges) because they both brought inferior material to the table. The problem is that there's a disconnect between the lyrics and music at times that can make the album more interesting but also frustrating. The hard rock flourishes on some of the songs ("Plan A", "I Warned You: Do Not Make an Enemy of Me", "I Just Sighed. I Just Sighed, Just So You Know") make sense for a band tired of accusations of tweesploitation, but sometimes Gareth's lyrics (which make up at least half of the band's charm) often get lost in the cacophony. For instance, the opening lines to "Plan A" (including the excellent couplet, "Days tethered to the running track/Evenings chained to the dishrack") are totally incomprehensible under the song's blaring horns and squealing guitars.
Romance Is Boring works more often than it doesn't, though, and it benefits from the new textures and instrumentation to make it the band's most ambitious and rewarding album. A few clunkers aside, the Campesinos are still delivering the kind of infectious, hyper-literate twee pop they've been making since their first EP, as you can hear on songs like the album's single, "There Are Listed Buildings". But they aren't satisfied JUST doing that and, thankfully, are trying new things to keep it interesting.
"There Are Listed Buildings" by Los Campesinos!
0 comments:
Post a Comment