LOS CAMPESINOS! @ PARADISE ROCK CLUB 6/16

Photography and Review by Kat Harmon

I only realized that I should prepare my friend for the Los Campesinos! show once we’re in the entry line. Though I’ve been eagerly counting down the days to see Los Campesinos! for a few weeks now, I suddenly find it hard to explain the band’s style. 

“They’re very high-energy,” I begin. 

“Okay,” my friend replies, wary. 

“And very British.”

“Okay,” my friend replies, excited.

Besides being high-energy and British, I like the band’s easy tonal swaps, the light they shed on the ugly parts of life and love, the clever wordplay in their lyricism, and the use of non-traditional rock instruments like violin, flute, and glockenspiel. 

Of course, I don’t think of any of this now. Instead, I stumble out, “And we probably should’ve brought earplugs.”

In my defense, Los Campesinos! has been put into many boxes over its 18 years of bandhood—post-punk, twee pop, noise pop, alternative, alt-rock, indie rock, indie punk, and indie pop, to name a few. They have always maintained that they’re the first and only emo band in the United Kingdom, but to pin Los Campesinos! down to a genre does them a disservice.

Epitomizing heartbreak, apathy, and the bitter gray areas of growing up, Los Campesinos! is the fountain of youth. It’s the kind of music to blast while speeding through your shitty hometown, the type of music to cry to when your crush gets a girlfriend, the kind of music to soundtrack giving yourself a questionable 2 AM haircut (all things I have done listening to Los Campesinos!), all in one. And Los Campesinos!’s performance is just like their music: loud, obscene, and unapologetic.

Los Campesinos! was formed at Cardiff University in 2006. Despite originating in Wales, none of the members of Los Campesinos! are Welch- the exact kind of paradox that makes the band so inexplicable. Though a lot has changed since then (only three of the original seven members remain in the band), Los Campesinos! has kept their dedication to using their platform for good. The band picks venues based on accessibility and gender inclusion, offers low-income tickets and merch sales options, and recently set up giveaways of discontinued merch and signed vinyl to fundraise for Palestinian relief charities.

On stage, two banners are draped over amps- one advocating for trans rights, dignity, and healthcare, and another advocating for freedom for Palestine. In addition to their advocacy for human rights issues, Los Campesinos! is also vocally liberal, with multiple lyrics mocking the British conservative party. In “The Sea is a Good Place to Think of the Future,” lead vocalist Gareth points the mic to the crowd as they scream, “You could never kiss a Tory boy without wanting to cut off your tongue again.”

Los Campesinos!’s new album, “All Hell,” will be no different. Taking motifs from “Dante’s Inferno,” the album addresses late-stage capitalism. It reframes the themes of love, sex, and friendship for the current day as the band members age and governmental systems seem on the brink of collapse. In the first single from the album, “Feast of Tongues,” Gareth sings that in a hypothetical climate apocalypse, he and a lover will “feast on the tongues of the last bootlickers.”

Behind the chorus, melodic chants of “a milestone, a millstone, a molehill, a molehill to die upon” gives voice to the futility of life under capitalism, the masses condemning the bootlickers for their compliance. At first, listen, the three currently available singles are much cleaner than earlier records, with well-sorted melodies and off-puttingly clear vocals that cut through the instrumentals. The songs take a new dimension as the crowd screams and the feedback shrieks join the chorus. It’s one thing to wax poetic about the messy hopelessness of society; it’s quite another to hear the poetry wail itself.

Los Campesinos! hasn’t released an album since “Sick Scenes” in 2017, so the announcement has brought the “weeping dipshits” (a name taken from a song off their B-side compilation album, “Whole Damn Body”) back out in droves. Los Campesinos! recently played their largest headlining show yet at the Troxy in London, which has already hit a legendary status. Fans at the Troxy have already blogged, vlogged, photographed, videographed, published, and boasted in pubs about their experience- enough to make any Yankee Los Campesinos! fan jealous. In Boston, Gareth runs a mid-show poll: Los Campesinos! has played in Boston seven times, and if the cheers are correct, most of the crowd has seen the band somewhere between two and five times.

Their cult following has only grown since their underground start in the mid-aughts, spawning everything from an oral history book to a full-blown fan wiki. The sheer amount of history can seem daunting to the new listener. Still, there’s no pretension in the older fans, just a willingness to share and an undying loyalty to the band.

At some point, fans coined the acronym LC!4LYF, quickly adding to display names and blog bios, and it caught on like wildfire. There’s no better way to describe the dedication and camaraderie of the band’s multi-generational, eclectic fanbase and no better way to describe the thrill of discovery, the ripple from the band’s early days of small gigs, and the meteoric growth that blazes on stage as they perform—once you’re a Los Campesinos! fan, it’s for life. 

“All Hell” will be released on July 19th, but the first three singles, “A Psychic Wound,” “Feast of Tongues,” and “0898 HEARTACHE,” are available now anywhere music is found.