Los Campesinos!: Hello Sadness

Los Campesinos!- Hello Sadness

The seven member collective known as Los Campesinos! have certainly been busy over the past few years. They have released four full length albums over the past four years, as well as managed their own website on a very personal level allowing members of their fan club to email them directly with questions about merchandise, records, and other purchases making their fans feel like they are standing at a merch table after a show. Their most recent album, Hello Sadness, is reflective of this personal mentality and stark openness, per usual of Campesino clan, however this time in a slightly more morose fashion.

Hello Sadness opens in normal Campesino style with the first single "By Your Hand" which maintains the group's indie pop, upbeat tempo and instrumentation. The next few songs follow suit true to Campesino style with heavy pop rock elements that make their music so catchy and wonderful, however after that it becomes more and more saturnine, no longer masked by the jubilant, exuberant music behind the painful lyrics. The tempo slows down and the melody of the instruments is deeper which causes a darker tone to the songs. This is not the first time they have delved into a gloomier sound, the single "The Sea is a Good Place to Think about the Future" off of their third album, Romance is Boring, saw the band approach a divergence from their tried and true sound, which they handled splendidly. Hello Sadness is no different.

Thematically Hello Sadness seems to be more complete than their previous works. While the subject matter of the songs, usually some sort of failed relationship, and the painfully open lyrics written and sung in each of their songs are not new adventures for the band, they have incorporated it into making a more whole album that fits together cohesively. As it progresses through the songs, the listener goes from a genuine sanguine feeling to a more acrimonious one. The opening track on the album “By Your Hand,” casts lead singer, Gareth, into somewhat of a heroic role as a new relationship begins with a “cruel mistress girl,” presumably a metaphor to symbolize “fate”, who then proceeds to vomit on him after inviting him back to her house. As the chorus comes around Gareth proclaims “By your hand is the only end that I foresee,” which shows the outlook of every budding, new relationship, especially one in the hands of a hopeless romantic, dark humorist, which Gareth can be seen as. And in Gareth’s ode to the English national soccer team “Every Defeat a Divorce (Three Lions)” while he is singing about a faltering soccer club in which losses come as no surprise it always feels as if there is some other sort of pain behind the words as he laments “you can lead a horse to water but it won’t drown itself.”

In today’s music world, where everyone is trying to be the topic of conversation, there is something to be said for consistency. This young band has released four albums, all of which have been very strong and have maintained the same style of music and songwriting. It is really an anomaly that this can still happen in today’s industry, but Los Campesinos! continue to embody an old-school-indie way of making music and dealing with their fans which remains a testament to their commitment to their work. And while they have not had a true breakthrough moment yet one is certainly on the horizon for this wonderful young Welch band.

8.5 out of 10

-Michi Oshima