Advanced Search >
Help Me Search

Music

All-Time High (And Low) Scores
Best of 2009
Best of 2008
Best of 2007
Best of 2006
Best of 2005
Best of 2004
Best of 2003
Best of 2002
Best of 2001
Best of 2000
Best of the Decade

Upcoming &
Recent Releases

sort by namesort by score

75 Alberta Cross
70 The Album Leaf
69 Alkaline Trio
66 Animal Collective
50 Athlete
82 Beach House
81 The Besnard Lakes
75 Kasper Bjorke
65 Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
64 Dan Black
75 Mary J. Blige
75 Blockhead
79 Blood Red Shoes
70 David Bowie
64 The Brian Jonestown Massacre
70 Broken Bells
65 V.V. Brown
72 The Brunettes
71 Basia Bulat
78 Carolina Chocolate Drops
79 Johnny Cash
79 Chew Lips
82 Chicago Underground Duo
79 The Chieftains Featuring Ry Cooder
76 Citay
66 Clem Snide
77 Clipd Beaks
78 Clogs
66 Cold War Kids
75 Easton Corbin
80 Crazy Heart
90 Crime In Stereo
70 Jamie Cullum
63 Fyfe Dangerfield
72 Delphic
89 The Dillinger Escape Plan
64 Dinowalrus
77 Drive-By Truckers
59 Editors
71 Eels
74 Efterklang
83 Eluvium
82 Erland And The Carnival
57 Everybody Was In The French Resistance...Now
63 Excepter
78 Field Music
76 First Aid Kit
68 Josephine Foster
82 Four Tet
71 Nils Frahm
77 Freeway & Jake One
75 Frightened Rabbit
82 Fucked Up
64 Peter Gabriel
79 Charlotte Gainsbourg
80 Galactic
67 The Gilded Palace Of Sin
73 Ernest Gonzales
59 Good Shoes
79 Gorillaz
70 Adam Green
79 Patty Griffin
76 Groove Armada
67 H.I.M.
43 Hadouken!
73 Harvey Milk
68 Juliana Hatfield
67 Jimi Hendrix
88 High On Fire
80 Hot Chip
66 The Hot Rats
88 Ray Wylie Hubbard
54 Hurricane Chris
76 Jaga Jazzist
76 Jaheim
68 jj
79 Freedy Johnston
54 Nick Jonas And The Administration
57 Ke$ha
74 The Knife In Collaboration With Mt. Sims And Planningtorock
63 Lady Antebellum
65 Dawn Landes
82 Lawrence Arabia
74 Ted Leo & The Pharmacists
82 Liars
72 Lightspeed Champion
37 Lil Wayne
82 Lindstrom & Christabelle
68 Little Boots
78 Local Natives
75 Los Campesinos!
67 Lostprophets
65 Ludacris
72 Magnetic Fields
74 Massive Attack
58 Katherine McPhee
60 Tom McRae
66 Daniel Merriweather
76 Pat Metheny
72 Midlake
64 Holly Miranda
79 Allison Moorer
83 Motion City Soundtrack
53 Mudvayne
65 Mumford & Sons
55 Never Shout Never
85 Joanna Newsom
81 Scout Niblett
76 Nneka
75 Oh No Ono
70 OK Go
71 Omarion
77 Owen Pallett
84 Pantha du Prince
77 Past Lives
84 Pavement
77 Phantogram
65 Pit Er Pat
86 Polar Bear
64 Priestess
69 Quasi
77 Corinne Bailey Rae
71 The Red Krayola With Art & Language
81 Fionn Regan
77 Retribution Gospel Choir
57 Martin Rev
64 Rjd2
63 Rogue Wave
82 Jack Rose
77 The Ruby Suns
78 Sade
77 Gil Scott-Heron
80 She & Him
77 Shearwater
69 Blake Shelton
84 Shining
68 Shout Out Louds
80 Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band
75 The Soft Pack
80 Spoon
63 Ringo Starr
68 Story Of The Year
71 The Strange Boys
74 Strong Arm Steady
78 Surfer Blood
60 Tape Deck Mountain
82 These New Puritans
76 Tindersticks
82 Titus Andronicus
72 Toro Y Moi
63 Josh Turner
81 Vampire Weekend
79 Laura Veirs
69 Via Audio
79 Butch Walker And The Black Widows
59 The Watson Twins
69 We Are Wolves
66 Kanye West
64 Wetdog
51 The Whigs
67 White Hills
79 The White Stripes
72 The Whitefield Brothers
68 Wu-Tang Clan
75 Xiu Xiu
78 Yeasayer
77 You Say Party! We Say Die!
63 Young Money
61 Rob Zombie

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed albums.

We are Beautiful, We Are Doomed

EMAILPRINTby Los Campesinos!

Los Campesinos! reviews
82
8.0 User Score:

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.

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...

100

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 >
100

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 >
90

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 >
83

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 >
83

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 >
80

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 >
80

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 >
80

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 >
80

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 >
80

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 >
80

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 >
80

Tiny Mix Tapes

We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed is an immensely enjoyable, plain-sailing cluster of energetic, singable melodies.

Read Full Review >
80

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 >
80

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 >
80

Uncut

It's every bit as good as their debut. [Nov 2008, p.109]

80

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 >
79

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 >
70

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 >
70

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 >
67

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 >
60

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]

60

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.

Read more user comments >

Popular on CBS sites: College Signing Day | March Madness | TV | iPhone | Cell Phones | Video Game Reviews | Free Music

About CBS Interactive | Jobs | Advertise

© 2010 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy (UPDATED) | Terms of Use