Los Campesinos! flesh out their exciting sound on their first full-length, Hold On Now, Youngster…. The young Welsh collective made a splash last year with Sticking Fingers Into Sockets EP (QRO review), and translated well across the pond, via Toronto’s Arts & Crafts label. But Sticking Fingers was really more of a prologue for Youngster, laying the groundwork for their enthusiastic, explosive sound.
In fact, Youngster borrows two songs directly from Fingers, “Don’t Tell Me To Do The Math(s)” and “You! Me! Dancing!” – “Math(s)” is the same, though “Dancing!” has a slow, growing opener tacked on at its beginning. Thankfully, they’re two of the strongest pieces on Fingers, fun, rollicking punk-pop dance numbers, with dueling male-female vocals from singers Gareth and Aleks Campesinos (all members have adopted ‘Campesinos’ as their surname). Other tracks on Youngster hew pretty closely to that same sound, such as starter and single “Death to Los Campesinos!”, while the following “Broken Heartbeats Sound Like Breakbeats” throws in a little more complexity (plus a great alternating count-out to lead it off).
This isn’t to say the kids haven’t grown up at all. There’s more use of melody than on Fingers, such as with the back-to-back “Drop it Doe Eyes” and “My Year in Lists”. “Doe” focuses on Aleks’ vocals, while “Lists”, on Gareth’s, making them an interesting pair, though “Lists” is the more touching one. “Sweet Dreams, Sweet Cheeks” has a driving power to go along with its high melody, while finisher “2007: The Year Punk Broke (My Heart)” goes truly orchestral.
But the band shows the most growth with the quiet, sweet, melancholy pop of “We Are Accelerated Readers”. It’s the final of three middle tracks wherein the group eschews the speedy beat they’re best known for. The previous “This Is How You Spell, ‘HAHAHA, We Destroyed the Hopes and Dreams of a Generation of Faux-Romantics’” is a growing group anthem, but has a world-wise nature to it. Before that, “Knee Deep at A.T.P.” is kind of a ballad-pause in the middle of the record, slightly throwing off the rhythm; Youngster might have been better served had it come after, not prior to, those two pieces.
It’s also a pity that Youngster didn’t include the group’s recent non-album single, “International Tweexcore Underground”, but that might be asking for too much. There’s already a direct line in Los Campesinos!’s growth trend from Sticking Fingers Into Sockets to Hold On Now, Youngster…. And that line is pointing up, up, up.
