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We are Beautiful, We Are Doomed

Universal acclaim
Based on 22 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 21 votes
Read user comments
Rate this album >
Album Info
Label: Arts & Crafts
Release Date: 25 November 2008
Discs: 1 disc
Genre(s): Rock, Indie
Summary
The second release for the Welsh indie-pop band was recorded in two weeks.
Also By This Artist: Hold On Now, Youngster Romance Is Boring
Also On The Web: Official Artist Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Entertainment Weekly
We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed is full of half-heartfelt, half-hilarious songs that capture the rush of being young in a noisy new century.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club)
This new pack is smart, immediate, and anthemic in the way only bedroom-pop fanatics can muster.
Read Full Review >New Musical Express (NME)
Cooked up in a session originally meant to spawn a batch of B-sides, We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed instead debuts 10 songs that outstrip LC!’s debut album at every turn.
Read Full Review >Pitchfork
Forget the technicalities and call it what it is: a messy, glorious, and cohesive artistic document of internet café-era indie life that sounds best when sung by heart.
Read Full Review >MSN Consumer Guide (Robert Christgau)
The painful detail and joyful exuberance are there once they get going. But in under two years this Welsh punk sextet has matured/devolved from tromping over their pan-sexual alienation like so many glockenspiel-wielding grape dancers to enacting "miserabilia" about how unfulfilling it is to get on your knees next to a urinal.
Read Full Review >musicOMH.com
Los Campesinos! continue to compose intelligent, well thought out songs, endearingly so, and eschew any trends other than the one they're setting for themselves.
Read Full Review >All Music Guide
"Hold on Now, Youngster" is still the more magical of the two records, it's the one to play when you want to feel joy, but We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed has more depth and feeling.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone
On Los Campesinos' second LP, he sings about puking in a Mexican restaurant and fucking up some dude's teeth, but he makes those lyrics sound almost uplifting thanks to a supercharged mix of violins, guitars and glockenspiel.
Read Full Review >PopMatters
The band is still firing on all cylinders, even when they downshift into the textured, minor key electronics-and-acoustic guitar lament of 'Heart Swells/Pacific Daylight Time' or the instrumental snippet 'Between an Erupting Earth and an Exploding Sky' (strangely reminiscent of Mogwai’s 'The Sun Smells Too Loud'), and no one can make bitterly self-aware misanthropy sound quite as exciting as this band does.
Read Full Review >NOW Magazine
For Los Campesinos! to come up with such a strong follow-up not even a year after their last is an amazing feat.
Read Full Review >Prefix Magazine
We Are Beautiful might not be the pinnacle for Los Campesinos!, but it does prove they’re rapidly on their way up.
Read Full Review >Tiny Mix Tapes
We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed is an immensely enjoyable, plain-sailing cluster of energetic, singable melodies.
Read Full Review >Blender
They’ve upped the sonic oomph a notch, leaning on the piano, violin, xylophones and perfectly mangled Pavement-style guitar mess.
Read Full Review >Sputnikmusic
At once a thorough progression of style, a blisteringly catchy indie pop record, a more accomplished indie rock record, and finally, a wordier but far heftier slice-of-life ode to being young and younger-than-you-feel (oh, love), We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed follows up on a promise and then some.
Read Full Review >Uncut
It's every bit as good as their debut. [Nov 2008, p.109]
Spin
Seasoned yet no less hyper--there's still plenty of shouting in unison -- the band lays down a more stable foundation for the lyrical zingers of singer-lyricist Gareth Campesinos.
Read Full Review >Paste Magazine
At just over a half hour long, it's more EP than album, but even these (ostensible) B-sides make for a giddy and infectious sprint.
Read Full Review >Drowned In Sound
So while it is more of the same, when that same is such an unpretentious joy to listen to it's churlish to complain. That's not to say it's perfect though: one or two tracks are slightly stretched beyond their natural life.
Read Full Review >Dot Music
Re-emerging after a mere eight month gestation with their second album (they're referring to it as an extended EP just to be difficult, but whatever), the only natural assumption would be that the whirlwind of inconsistency smashes on unabated. And in some respects it does, but key to this record's fortunes is a sense that first they're running out of ideas and second have chilled their bones to become less rigidly obsessed with quantity and cleverness and proving their self-worth.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle
Second LP We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed continues on the path blazed by their 2008 debut, all urgent joy, jubilation, and communion.
Read Full Review >Alternative Press
The songs explode with more energy than the whole underground combined. This makes it very hard not to love Los Campesinos!, and makes it easier to forgive the fact this record could have been better served as an EP. [Nov 2008, p.162]
Q Magazine
As the exclaimation mark in their name suggests, their every sentiment is exaggerated, but they do do careening anxiety rather well. [Nov 2008, p.110]
What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this album is 8.0 (out of 10) based on 21 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Leah T. gave it a10:
Brilliant, although not at first - Los Campesinos! requires always a few listens - and then you wonder how you ever lived without them.
Mike T gave it a10:
I'm a realist, i'm insatiable. That being said, this album is incredible and by far my favorite of the year. Just saw them live in Carrboro NC and it was the best show I've seen in ages.
Kevin S. gave it a10:
Very good.
jimi m. gave it a10:
IT is a flawless album, from start to finish.
John H. gave it a9:
Energetic and sincere, the most fun you'll have being depressed.
Pete W gave it a9:
Lovely. More heartfelt than the first. Roll on the next 8 months.
Peter M. gave it a9:
One of the few good rock bands right now.
