On the couple of occasions in the past when I've tried to write multi-part entries, I've failed miserably (coming some time soon, or never: part two of The 69 Love Songs Project). For whatever reason, lately I've been much more productive on the writing front, though, so here's hoping part two will not just be a theoretical piece. Anyway, onwards...
I've never really cared for Los Campesinos! In many respects, they're exactly the type of band I should like, too; usually, quirky-and-intelligent indie pop always wins me over. Yet the Los Campesinos! brand of it never has, and I occasionally wonder why that is. Maybe it's the incredibly pretentious song titles (see: "Don't Tell Me To Do The Math(s)," and many more). Maybe it's that they wear their influences on their sleeves to such a ridiculous extent (going so far as to list a good few of them in "The International Tweexcore Underground") that when they don't live up to them, it's a huge disappointment. Maybe it's the seriously unimpressive vocal stylings...and so on, and so forth. I do keep trying; alas, their newest release, Romance Is Boring, has done nothing to win me over. It doesn't even possess an upbeat, "You! Me! Dancing!"-style high-point; "Straight In At 101" might have served that role, were it not for the opening lines - "I think we need more post-coital and less post-rock" - burying any value the song may have under their spectacular awfulness. True to form, the song titles are often ridiculous (with "I Just Sighed. I Just Sighed, Just So You Know" the narrow winner this time round) and the music isn't good enough to redeem them. Romance Is Boring has a seriousness about it that detracts from the sense of fun of their earlier material, and whilst I wouldn't want to make the obvious "this is the sound of a band growing up" comment, the album plods along, and I'm still not interested in them.
Mind you, they've got much more going for themselves than Two Door Cinema Club, who've garnered a lot of hype and live up to none of it on debut album Tourist History. It's not that they do a great deal wrong; they're very much the sum of their parts, it's just that those parts are derivative, resulting in an uninspired mishmash of every indie-pop band you've loved these last five years. "This Is The Life" and "Eat That Up, It's Good For You" barely qualify as standout tracks, and will almost certainly end up on the soundtrack of the next season of Skins. Mediocre.
Meanwhile, the level of restraint Vampire Weekend show on sophomore release Contra is commendable; they've eschewed some of the more obvious indie-pop signifiers of their debut effort, and as someone who always preferred "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" to "A-Punk," I'm definitely in favour of this move. If opening track "Horchata" still sees them in Graceland mode, then by the time superb album closer "I Think Ur A Contra" comes around, they've done enough to convince that they're not one trick ponies, and whilst it's hard to imagine them ever actually deserving the two contrasting extremes of adulation and hatred they inspire, they should be praised for significantly improving upon Vampire Weekend. The franticness of "Cousins" and "Holiday" stand out as anachronisms that are best left in the past in favour of the slow-burn likes of "Taxi Cab" and "Diplomat's Son." There's a nagging part of me that wants to suggest that they've got a truly great album in them somewhere down the line; this isn't it, but it's enough to ensure I'll still be paying attention to them.
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