We’re going to review some records again. Records we think we all should care about whether they’re good or bad. Cool? Cool.

all words: Andy Hess

For the readers: I have an unhealthy obsession with the perfect pop song (read: Since U Been Gone, You Belong To Me — apparently my ears want me to be a teenage girl), understated guitar albums and I could not live without Weezer — well, maybe post-Pinkerton Weezer — or The Hold Steady.

Rating system
0 stars – Complete and utter garbage
1 star – Best just not to ever press play, save your ears for another day
2 stars – Not completely atrocious, but one you’ll probably forget about as soon as it’s over
3 stars – Good, but not great, likely with some excellent songs and others you’ll skip right through
4 stars – Damn good album, one you’ll definitely want to enjoy again and again
5 stars – Instant Classic

4.5 stars out of 5 | Stream | Buy Romance Is Boring [Arts & Crafts; 2010]

Cardiff septet Los Campesinos! are still flag waving members of the International Tweexcore Underground, but with their latest release, Romance Is Boring, the highly caffeinated anthems take an even darker turn.

The band says the record is “about death and decay of the human body, sex, lost love, mental breakdown, football and, ultimately, that there probably isn’t a light at the end of the tunnel.” For a group that used to sing cute songs about b-sides, K Records t-shirts, The Breakfast Club and Spiderman, Romance is heavy stuff.

The album features discreet contributions from Xiu Xiu’s Jamie Stewart, Parenthetical Girls‘ Zac Pennington and Dead Science’s Jherek Bischoff, but the real hero of the record is producer John Goodsmanson (Bikini Kill, Sleater-Kinney, Wu-Tang Clan) — who also produced the band’s last record We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed. Where previous Los Campesinos! records — Hold On Now, Youngster… in particular — felt claustrophobic and on the edge of implosion, Goodsmanson gives the instruments a chance to breathe on this release. And it helps.

It would be impossible to list every great moment on this record, but here are a few: the wild and reckless guitars in the breakneck “There Are Listed Buildings”; the heartbreakingly sincere chorus in “I Just Sighed. I Just Sighed, Just So You Know”; the opening line of “Straight In At 101″ (We need more post-coital/And less post-rock); everything about “The Sea Is A Good Place To Think Of The Future”.

While Los Campesinos! still manage to make wonderfully melodramatic, sex obsessed, self-indulgent, snot rock, this is by far their most difficult record.

It’s also their best yet.

http://www.vimeo.com/6466859