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Nov 16, 2011The honesty behind Hello Sadness is remarkable and incredibly appealing.
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Nov 16, 2011They may never make a record as unhinged and beautiful as Hold on Now, Youngster..., but if they keep making records as tough and exciting as Hello Sadness, Los Campesinos! will always be worth keeping up with.
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Alternative PressNov 11, 2011His band match his pain note-for-note for a brutal but rewarding listen. [Dec 2011, p.119]
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Nov 10, 2011Maturity and sonic streamlining hasn't removed the essence of what gave them their cult following.
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Nov 16, 2011[It offers] up some of the most melodramatic songs Los Campesinos! have recorded to date.
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Nov 10, 2011The best moments remain the songs where the band moves as a unit, conjuring a sense of hope and elation, rather than falling back on tired, shouty punk cliches.
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Nov 17, 2011They haven't lost a bit of the cheeky lyrics and determined instrumentals that made them who they were; they've just tweaked it all to suit who they are now.
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Dec 5, 2011It still is either very sincere or very sarcastic, or both, though these are two qualities which have always been both a justification for liking them and just as easily a reason why not, meanwhile not offering any amnesty or middle ground.
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Nov 17, 2011Hello Sadness is a thrilling success for the most part. Los Campesinos! have tightened up their sound but haven't lost any of the musical elements that made them successful in the first place.
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Nov 17, 2011It's a solid performance, by far their most coherent yet, but missing some of the flair of previous bouts.
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Nov 22, 2011Whereas previous albums took a massive leap into noise and danger, this disappoints.
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Nov 10, 2011Lyrically, gone is the amusing petulance, and in its place are tales that tug on the heart strings by creating patchwork mind pictures with words. And when Los Campesinos! hit that sweet spot, the results are stunning.
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Nov 17, 2011The kids of the LC! still bristle with a fundamental melodic vibrancy, and the hand-in-hand maturing of music-writer Tom Campesinos! into the realms of Sonic Youth thrashes, cranky synthetics and handclaps, harmonium, violin and bar-room piano gives the record a gravitas to counterpoint Gareth's lyrical anguish.
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Jan 3, 2012Mature, reflective, elegant and just that little bit haunting, but ultimately and most importantly of all, brilliant.
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Dec 2, 2011Gareth's voice has gone from excited and jubilant to pained and miserable -– an uncanny cross between Robert Smith and Conor Oberst.
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Nov 15, 2011With the familiar bounce and sardonic lyrics--and the development of the band's capabilities to produce tamer, deeper, more mellow fare--it's been worth the wait.
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Nov 16, 2011Hello Sadness is their fourth straight great album.
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Nov 15, 2011Ergo, Los Campesinos! had a very strong EP's worth of material on Hello Sadness, as five or six of the songs make a mark; the rest is largely filler on an album stretched out to a 40 minute runtime.
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Nov 21, 2011Hello Sadness offers the lumbering and deflated version of Los Campesinos!, hiding away their most alluring energy in favor of glum inactivity.
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Q MagazineDec 15, 2011It's focused, punchy and beautifully poetic. [Dec. 2011 p. 129]
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Nov 22, 2011His romantic failure makes for fine songs.
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Nov 10, 2011Los Campesinos! can't stop adorning their odes to existential grief with snappy handclaps, but the Welsh septet are still showing signs of growth on this third album.
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Nov 18, 2011There are instrumental bridges on this album that seem, blissfully, to go on forever, leading perfectly into the next song.
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Nov 15, 2011Unfortunately, Hello Sadness too often mistakes gloominess for maturity.
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Nov 16, 2011Musically, the septet are as colorful as ever, only more resonant and with fewer xylophones--plus a newfound emphasis on rhythmic muscle.
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Nov 10, 2011Written while reeling from the scorpion sting of heartbreak, Gareth Campesinos' lyrics to his band's fourth album are navel-gazing in the extreme.
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Nov 14, 2011All those words compete for room uncomfortably sometimes.
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Nov 14, 2011Hello Sadness hits harder than any indie rock record in recent memory because it doesn't really sound like the gentrified indie rock I've grown so frustratingly familiar with.
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UncutNov 23, 2011The band strike a neat balance between chunky Pavement guitar scrawl and sombre orchestrals. [Dec 2011, p.89]
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Under The RadarNov 15, 2011The rest of Hello Sadness, however, finds the band drifting into less familiar territory, with mixed results. [Oct 2011, p.101]
User score distribution:
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Positive: 18 out of 20
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Mixed: 1 out of 20
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Negative: 1 out of 20
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Jun 18, 2012
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Jan 8, 2012
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Nov 30, 2011