Rating: NNN
As if responding to our irritation at that incessant Budweiser ad featuring the feverish guitar intro to You! Me! Dancing! by Los Campesinos!, the band has delivered an album packed with songs that will surely never be licensed to a sports-related beer commercial.
Hello Sadness, the Welsh seven-piece’s fourth album, makes good on its title and reels through a purported breakup experienced by lead singer Gareth Campesinos prior to the recording. Appropriately, Gareth’s voice has gone from excited and jubilant to pained and miserable – an uncanny cross between Robert Smith and Conor Oberst.
The gang vocals on Songs About Your Girlfriend help sunlight break through the clouds, and the danceable tempos of the title song make sure the album never quite reaches the Cure’s Disintegration level of navel-gazing. Not that it doesn’t try.
Top track: Hello Sadness
