Los Campesinos! - Hold On Now, Youngster

Los Campesinos have all of the energy of an entire kindergarten class hooked up to caffeine IV drips, which is to say, a LOT. Oddly enough, the first band that came to mind upon starting this album was The Anniversary circa Desigining A Nervous Breakdown- if The Anniversary were British and WAY more hyped about everything.

The vocals are split pretty evenly between Gareth and Aleksandra Campesinos (who are also responsible for glockenspiel and keyboard, respectively). I'd have to say I favor Gareth over Aleksandra though. While she's a competent enough singer, she's just kind of, I don't know, there. Meanwhile, her male counterpart, who at times seems like Art Brut singer Eddie Argos' little brother, is wailing his way through every song, sounding exactly like the unhinged, manic adolescent their music seems to represent. He's wildly out of key, he causes the mix to clip at times, but at the same time, he's what pushes the band beyond the lazy comparisons one could make (like the one I did earlier!).

The band's debut album, Hold On Now, Youngster manages to pack in a ton of references (to things like the ATP music festival, K Records), barrels of seemingly teenage angst, and other timeworn lyrical focuses into extremely high strung indie punk. Guitar leads are high on the neck of the guitar and all over the place. Synths buzz in every direction, everyone is shouting, and the whole thing constantly seems like it's on the verge of falling apart. Which is exactly where this album manages to derive a great deal of its charm. If this album was completely smoothed over, or run through a ProTools autotune rig, I doubt I'd be that interested in listening, as it would probably sound just like every other indie band that has managed to score big in Europe. When the songs hit their slower sections, I'm guessing it's because they all just need to take a breather. That's how frantic things get at times.

Surprisingly, the song everybody seemed to dry hump when it came out, "You! Me! Dancing!" was probably my least favorite of the set. It's almost like it made it big because it was the closest thing to safe indie rock that the band had released.

I haven't heard Los Campesinos' 2nd 2008 release, We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed yet, but if it manages to come anywhere close to the manic highs this album achieves, I'll look forward to checking it out.

-Erik