REVIEW: Los Campesinos!-Hold On Now, Youngster...

Stressed-out college students of America, your wait is finally over. Los Campesinos! has finally discovered the perfect cure for your midterm malaise—the strong dose of energetic indie pop provided on their debut full-length Hold On Now, Youngster. The band’s homeland of Wales isn’t exactly known for its pleasing climate and sunny skies, which seems to have forced the seven-person group to make their own sunlight with warm, smooth boy-girl vocals, fast guitar hooks, and even a freakin’ glockenspiel. In many ways, they pack a similar pop-punk-punch as Fallout Boy, but with Morrissey and the Stooges as actual influences and not just buzzwords.

As the album title implies, this is a young band making young music. Lyrical themes including doodling skeletons “to get across a sense of impending doom,” and they’re not afraid to whip out song titles like “This is How You Spell ‘Hahaha, We Destroyed the Hopes and Dreams of a Generation of Faux-Romantics.’”

The lyrics are honest, vibrant, and clever, and the songs themselves are just as charismatic. Buzz song “You! Me! Dancing!” has been around the blogs for a while, but it still feels fresh despite clocking in at almost seven minutes. “Drop It Doe Eyes” features a sweet string-laced chorus of “Deer die with their eyes wide open” but keeps it from getting maudlin with an intense buildup to a frantic ending, and the follow-up track “My Year in Lists” maintains the energy for less than two minutes of sheer exuberance. In fact, Los Campesinos! is one of the most genuinely exuberant bands to enter the rock scene in a while, making Hold On Now, Youngster the perfect album to lead us into spring.

5/5