Los Campesinos! are years removed from their exuberant breakthrough debut, shifting members and focusing more on loss, less on energy. Yet growing up hasn’t radically altered their sound, and that continues with Sick Scenes.
For those who’ve followed Campesinos for a while, Scenes does sound very much like them, with the wry, active laments on such songs as “I Broke Up in Amarante” and “5 Flucloxacillin”. Singer Gareth Campesinos! (QRO interview) still has his way with his rambling but spot-on lyrics, such as in “Flucloxacillin”. Even the outliers on the record are familiar to those who know Campesinos, like the sweet, sad, strings & keys led “The Fall of Home”, the more straightforwardly indie “Got Stendhal’s”, or the darker cry of loss “A Litany/Heart Swells” – this is even the third “Heart Swells” song by Los Campesinos!.
Sick Scenes is not a revelation, but by this point Los Campesinos! don’t need to be revelatory. It is another strong Los Campesinos! record, which is just what their fans are looking for.
