Albums to watch

Romance Is Boring

Los Campesinos!

Romance Is Boring

Third album from Cardiff-based indie pop seven piece (though none of the members are Welsh)

ADM rating[?]

7.1

Label
Wichita
UK Release date
01/02/2010
  1. 9.0 |   PopMatters

    This is the band’s third album in under 24 months, and it’s no less wordy and personality-driven than the previous two. This is a prolific band with a prolific and unstoppable songwriter, who we are clearly not hearing the last of
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  2. 8.4 |   Beats Per Minute

    There are a couple of tracks in the middle portion of the album that drag down its consistency and may have been better off on the cutting room floor, but taken as a whole it triumphs
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  3. 8.3 |   Pitchfork

    It's fun watching bands grow; it's been a pleasure watching this band grow up
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  4. 8.0 |   Drowned In Sound

    Their sloganeering, haughtiness and mocking dismissal of their dislikes will always remain contentious, but never suggest they don’t mean it. This matters more to them than it does anybody else; Romance is Boring is the openly flawed but often brilliant proof
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  5. 8.0 |   Independent on Sunday

    ...can switch from dubstep-influenced downtempo to Spectoresque overkill in a half-second
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  6. 8.0 |   The Line Of Best Fit

    A couple of later tracks could have been dropped to make it a trim forty minutes through the emotional wringer, in truth, but if the intention was to edge away from the stock image of glock-wielding shouty full-frontal charges, it’s worked a treat
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  7. 8.0 |   Mojo

    Print edition only

  8. 8.0 |   NME

    What primarily sets ‘Romance Is Boring’ up as a significant step forward is that it’s incredibly structurally cohesive, and yet blows anything they’ve previously released out of the water
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  9. 8.0 |   Clash

    ...the band bring to their latest effort a much darker atmosphere, with similarly desperate lyrics
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  10. 8.0 |   The Digital Fix

    Pull on your leather jacket and start back-combing your hair. Los Campesinos! have gone all rock and roll. Discard all that is twee. Stop making eyes at the wallflowers and make a bee-line for the mosh-pit
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  11. 8.0 |   No Ripcord

    Romance Is Boring is fun, knowing, astute, energetic and packed with vignettes of youth and love lost
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  12. 8.0 |   Rave Magazine

    While the collision of unexpected instruments (horn explosions appearing without warning etc) is not a new concept to indie rock, Los Campesinos! succeed due to their pure vitality, urgency and energy
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  13. 8.0 |   Blurt

    For a band lacking any obvious instrumental virtuoso, Los Campesinos! are still tight as hell and these songs turn on a dime, from anthemic to despairing and back again (sometimes both at once)
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  14. 8.0 |   FasterLouder

    The insular, adolescent outlook won’t appeal to everyone, but anyone who has ever wanted to throw a brick through the window of an ex will know that we’re not always calm
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  15. 7.0 |   Rolling Stone

    Tts exuberant din is hard to deny
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  16. 7.0 |   Spin

    ...one of the most touchingly sarcastic lyricists to emerge in years
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  17. 7.0 |   The Fly

    ...some tracks may pass you by but these moments will floor jaws and steal hearts
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  18. 7.0 |   God Is In The TV

    It is a success in places and not in others but the essence which runs throughout is of a band with more maturity than their years with a lot more to offer
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  19. 7.0 |   Under The Radar

    Anchored by enough exhilarating moments, big and small, to make trolling for them through the muck a pleasure
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  20. 6.0 |   Tiny Mix Tapes

    The album is a carefully crafted rollercoaster of emotional and auditory highs and lows, exhibiting the group's subtle growth since its major breakout
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  21. 6.0 |   State

    Granted the septet have crafted some of their strongest tunes thus far but they seemed to have lost some of their ramshackle charm along the way
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  22. 6.0 |   Eye Weekly

    ...an astute portrait of their generation, blending sugary new wave and vitriolic lyricism into swooning, brassy pop
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  23. 6.0 |   Q

    Print edition only

  24. 6.0 |   The Guardian

    Los Campesinos! now sound a little less like a series of twitching climaxes, and they're the better for it
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  25. 4.0 |   Uncut

    Print edition only

  26. 4.0 |   The Irish Times

    Up-tempo boy-girl duets with breezy choruses and sputters of glockenspiel are all well and good, but 15 of them is just, well, boring
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Los Campesinos!: Romance Is Boring

  • Download full album for just £7.99
  • 1. In Medias Res £0.99
  • 2. There Are Listed Buildings £0.99
  • 3. Romance Is Boring £0.99
  • 4. We've Got Your Back £0.99
  • 5. (PLAN A) £0.99
  • 6. 200-102 £0.99
  • 7. Straight In At 101 £0.99
  • 8. Who Fell Asleep In £0.99
  • 9. I Warned You: Do Not Make An Enemy Of Me £0.99
  • 10. Heart Swells / 100-1 £0.99
  • 11. I Just Signed. I Just Sighed, Just So You Know £0.99
  • 12. A Heat Rash In The Shape Of The Show Me State; Or, Letters From Me To Charlotte £0.99
  • 13. The Sea Is A Good Place To Think Of The Future £0.99
  • 14. This Is A Flag. There Is No Wind £0.99
  • 15. Coda: A Burn Scar In The Shape Of The Sooner State £0.99
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