Los Campesinos!: Hold On Now, Youngster

By Josh Modell | April 8, 2008 | 4:41am

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Don't dismiss Los Campesinos as too twee without
listening closely: The Welsh band's debut full-length captures more believable,
crackling punk energy than most hardcore bands. Hold On Now, Youngster—an appropriate
title for a bunch that looks barely post-pubescent—makes its case with
sunny, sarcastic looseness and an unfakeable sense of joie de vivre. Even as
the seven-piece falls nose-over-tail having fun, singer Gareth Campesino
(they're all named that way) is ready to skewer the world with pointed words
and clever complaints. On paper, the combination of smarty-pants and
serious-pants sounds like disaster; in practice, it makes one of the year's
best discs so far.

Like a younger, less-serious Broken Social
Scene—a band they clearly admire, if the opening track, "Death To
Campesinos!", is any evidence—Los Campesinos find inspiration in
collective energy, but unlike with BSS, the lyrics are direct and funny. "I
spent the last seven years perched on the edge of my bed / Scratching 'I am
incredibly sincere' into my forearms" rings hilarious and true in the context
of a song about misunderstanding and underestimating the riot-grrrl movement.
Add glockenspiel, violin, and references to Bis (the unstoppable "You! Me!
Dancing!") and K Records T-shirts ("Knee Deep At ATP"), and you have a recipe
for disastrous preciousness. Mix it up just right, though, and it's pure joy.