Los Campesinos! - Hold OnNow, Youngster...

Wed 30th Jul, 2008 in Music Reviews

As I write this, I’m feeling rather content. This is not something I’ve had the chance to do very often recently, and it’s not just because my caffeine consumption has spiked. Without turning this review into a LiveJournal entry, let’s just say my home life has been “unstable” in the past few months. And so I’m sitting here, reading Pitchfork review an album in characteristically verbose fashion, and of course they’ve managed to all but overlook a track on an album that stands out so much I just don’t know how you could. It’s also had the advantage of joining forces via playlisting with what I think will be the album of 2008. The track is You Were Too Old For Me by PAS/CAL. The album is Hold On Now, Youngster… by Los Campesinos!

I wasn’t always of this mindset, mind. My first exposure to the group was a characteristically enthused, sped-up run through Pavement’s seminal track Frontwards. From there I decided to check out some originals…I was unimpressed and they were forgotten, despite the rave reviews coming in for the Sticking Fingers Into Sockets EP. So in summation, I made a mistake because Hold On Now, Youngster… is the best album I have heard in a very long time. Part of that probably stems from my teenage tendency to latch onto anyone who references The Breakfast Club, but I’d like to think it goes deeper than that.

But then again, Los Campesinos! aren’t exactly about depth from where I’m standing. I must have missed something the first time around because these songs have a sense of urgency and immediacy seriously lacking from most modern groups. (We have The Strokes to thank for that) While on the topic, it has to be said that HONY has done a great job of being the complete antithesis of everything that sucks in rock music in 2008: It’s eclectic rather than focused, it brings new ideas to the table rather than simply re-appropriating old ones and it’s just plain fun as opposed to mind-numbingly serious. (“I don’t care if we sell one million less copies etc.”) Some bands can definitely lay claim to one or two of these attributes, and some all three (Franz Ferdinand comes to mind) but none of them have executed their music with as much aplomb or as much heart as Los Campesinos!

People have talked about the “witty” and “clever” lyrics, but I really don’t think proving how much they know about pop culture is the point here. I think the point is to simply rip the hearts out of all the young people out there that have placed style over substance. In that sense, it’s Do The Standing Still turned into a full-fledged album and the music reflects this. There’s no subtlety to Los Campesinos! When they’re happy they’re going to try as hard as they can to make you feel the same, the flipside is true also. The style in this case, is that of a group in a room hitting their instruments as hard as they can and trying to make you relate to it. It’s no small feat that they’ve managed to achieve this.

I don’t want to focus on any one specific track, as unlike PAS/CAL’s album there isn’t one that sets itself apart from the others. And that’s how an album should be, and that’s why I’m content. You! Me! Dancing! is playing at the moment, and I can’t remember how many times I’ve gone to a school dance and not moved an inch away from the wall for fear of looking like a fool. These days I’m in the middle of it all, and I can’t dance a single step. People have complained about the mastering of the album and how it’s too loud, and it probably is, but comments like that just make me want to buy one of those incredibly garish “If It’s Too Loud You’re Too Old” t-shirts from Sportsgirl or wherever the hell you purchase such trash. That’s how much I love this album. It is potentially the first album since Neon Golden that rightfully deserves to be labeled as classic. (And you Funeral fans can serious get out of my review) So yeah, pretty much essential.