.Los Campesinos!

We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed

Essentially, We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed is not the
sophomore album by Welsh septet Los Campesinos! It’s more of a
collectors’ item; it was released in a single pressing and packed with
an accompanying DVD documentary about two summer festival appearances;
a ‘zine that includes scribblings from Xiu Xiu, Grandaddy, and Menomena
(among others); and a poster. The get-it-while-you-can, compendium
nature of this release makes it difficult to call it a proper follow-up
to Hold on Now, Youngster … , the band’s excellent debut.
Semantics aside, these ten tracks are, in many ways, superior to their
predecessor.

Recorded in Seattle in June, the album is a triumph of reckless
abandon and youthful urgency, though disaster and gloom are the
cohesive glue. Opening with the darkly unwieldy “Ways to Make It
Through the Wall,” the band establishes a breakneck pace and bleak
outlook. The fuzzy title track benefits from synth swirls reminiscent
of the Flaming Lips, weeping violins, and an explosive chorus. It also
boasts the album’s most brutally honest couplet, sung collectively:
We kid ourselves there’s future in the fucking/But there is no
fucking future
.

For such a young group, Los Campesinos! tackle music that’s
uplifting in execution and dour in discourse better than many of the
elders from whom they are cribbing. For an album that celebrates all
possible impending apocalypses and was piecemeal in its construction,
it’s a damn thrilling and infectious listen. (Arts and Crafts)

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