Los Campesinos! - We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed - 8/10Welsh power-pop group Los Campesinos! are releasing a new album on October 13 called We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed. The album was recorded over an 11-day span in Seattle and inevitably picked up some American rock influence. The guitars add a bit more of American prog into the mix instead of the nearly straight up Young Scotland style of the previous release.
Don't get me wrong though. The album is through-and- through Brit-pop. The whole thing takes on a darker tone than Death to Los Campesinos! especially in tracks like "Miserabilia" and the heavy Muse-like instrumental "Between an Erupting Earth and Exploding Sky." But the same shouty vocals and spunk from the debut album are still there, albeit in smaller quantities.
In some ways though, the darker material makes the album more polished and even more musically upright than Death. The lyrics are better written and the vocals are more matured. It's a little less jangle and a bit more solid substance. It's a solid album overall with no great flaws. The charm of Death is still there, but the whole sound mellowed from unbridled juvenile energy to more controlled sounds with a more audible angst to them. It's not the ray of sarcastic sunshine that Death was. But it's still a top-shelf release all the same.
- Garrett Lyons
Los Campesinos! - "We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed"
Los Campesinos! - "Ways to Make It Through the Wall"
