Heart Skipped A Beat

Los Campesinos! want to give new things a try. More post-coital and less post-rock as they themselves put it. After all, who would want to be the cute nerdish band forever? No, we are growing up and so should our music. We make adjustments and throw away old ideas that might not interest the audience (who is also growing up with us, right?).

So Gareth Campesinos! takes out his pen, nervously writes on a piece of paper “But let’s talk about you for a minute” and draws the vivid picture of a fucked up couple of youngsters. Violins and twinkles and abrupt guitars join him as In Medias Res blooms. But what he does on the second half of the intro for their new album, Romance Is Boring, shows despair and his search for peace and quiet amidst all the chaos of youth. “If you were given the option of dying painlessly in peace at 45/But with a lover at your side/After a full and happy life/Is this something that would interest you?” he asks, and almost burns a whole through your heart.

Guitars swirl and turn into There Are Listed Buildings and Gareth’s pen seems determined to twist words with Morrissey-an skill (‘We are but two atheists in lust, you know, we gotta make our own luck’). The chaos on the inside is morphed on the outside in noisy guitars, shouts, ideas thrown randomly, heavy bass lines and dissonant trumpets. But as the title song comes in, it is Gareth himself who dismisses the last lines of the first song, not his new lover. “We are two ships that pass in the night, you and me are nothing alike” and sounds awfully a lot like Eddie Argos. And then both Aleks and Gareth burst into a “Prove to each other that romance is boring” while the rest of the band create a very Art Brut musical piece.

The picture of the second minor emotional breakdown of the two atheists is painted on We’ve Got Your Back. Every line seems to be either something vile you’d shout at your other half or something that doesn’t let you sleep at night. Every guitar chord seems to be a shout. Every drum beat seems to take the form of one’s heart pounding out of their chest. And then the silence is blown to piece by Plan A and its Help She Can’t Swim atmosphere. As Gareth takes another breath between Mal- and TAH, the guitars plunge into heavy distortion and squeal over the rest of the instruments. And every second declares the death of Hold On Now, Youngster – era Campesinos.

To make sure you get the point, these youngsters take out random percussion instruments and create 200-102, a short interlude that could be mistaken for Modest Mouse and that quickly flows into Straight In At 101. A sometimes post-rock (sic!) orientated musical piece that proves to be yet another lyrical tour de force. It has strange and rapid key swifts and Gareth knows how to twist the knife really deep.

“It pains me, but I'm sure she's still yours” goes a line on Who Fell Asleep In leaving no doubt what it is all about. And for the first time, Los Campesinos! are clam and their music doesn’t translate into despair but acceptance and silent pain. And then they return to Help She Can’t Swim textures and lyrics with I Warned You: Do Not Make An Enemy Out Of Me. But now the violins and Aleks’ voice take to song into a world familiar to those who loved the first materials.

We are swiftly reminded this is a record about heartaches and Heart Swell/100-1 reaps your heart out and walks over it. Gareth’s voice is but an echo, the instrumental seems to be his body that is drenched of life because of all the hurt and the lyrics are so simple but so perfect: “By now it's just the three of us: me./ Your shadow./Your echo./I do not believe that I've ever felt any more alone.”

Yet again Gareth’s pen is awaken and paints rabidly another heart-wrenching unshared love story, I Just Sighed. I Just Sighed Just So You Know. The nervous guitars clash with twinkles in the back as the two singers take you through daggers in thoracic walls, eulogies in guest books and a lifetime of dedication. And all they want is to “be the one to keep track of the freckles and the moles on your back.”

A Heat Rash In The Shape Of The Show Me State; Or, Letters From Me To Charlotte takes things closer to older Los Campesinos songs. The pounding drums of the intro leave place for a big orchestra and the story of a perfect couple that seems so absurd and unlikely to ever exist. And then get yourselves ready because an all-so-know song is about to start: The Sea Is A Good Place To Think About The Future. So let your heart beat out of your chest, your mouth run dry and a hole form in your stomach once more as Gareth sings “This thing hurts like hell” and his words are met with a “But what did you expect?”.

Just as the violins of The Sea… calm down, the first line of This Is A Flag. There Is No Wind hits you: “CAN WE ALL PLEASE JUST CALM THE FUCK DOWN?”. Swirls of guitars and Aleks and Gareth both shouting the chorus for a song that needs maximum volume for full effect. The ending song, Coda: A Burn Scar In The Shape Of The Sooner State, is, hands down, the perfect ending for one great album. It grows into a mass of woozy reverbs and it ends in one of the most painfully delivered lines of all times: “I can't believe I chose the mountains every time you chose the sea... “.

And as the feedbacks dye down, Romance Is Boring comes to an end and you realize none of it was boring. It was hard to swallow and it remind it you of every ‘no’ a loved one ever told you and it might’ve opened scars that you had forgotten of. But it was one great little gem.