2008 Favorites: Los Campesinos!/We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed

Los Campesinos! may not consider We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed to be their proper second album, but whatever it's place in their discography, its the best collection of material they released this year. To my mind it is the first 'real' record anyway. Hold On Now, Youngster… was a good record taken on it's own merits, but tonally it was just a continuation of their Sticking Fingers Into Sockets EP. The giddy sugar rush of Fingers played out at album length left me with a sore stomach and the unsettling feeling that this promising young band had only one gear and they were going to gun the engine until the car ran out of gas. Eight months later this record came out and shortened the odds on Los Campesinos! Turns out they wear desperation as well as they do joy, and that they're interested exploring the threads that connect the two (reflected in the duality of the title). The band's indie rock fetishizing - so key to their early material and appeal - is reigned in here: less inside baseball lyrics, no pep squad shouts, no exclamation points in the song titles (as opposed to four on Hold On Now, Youngster…) just ten great songs delivered with the confidence and charisma a great young band coming into it's own. Turns out that all the twee fixation on indie rock bands was besides the point: Los Campesinos are a band worth getting fixated on themselves.