Hold On Now, Youngster

It is, however, undoubtedly a collection of many good songs. From start to finish, it’s a relentlessly difficult listen, and one that suffers from little in the way of dynamics or variety of tone.

Two things save Los Campesinos! from being utterly insufferable. The first is that many of these songs are such fun, hurtling from the speakers in a blur of fuzzy guitars, big shouty choruses and smart vocal jousting between singers Gareth and Alexsandra. The second saving grace is that Los Campesinos! have the brains to back up their smart arse attitude.

This debut is unusually taut and polished, with hooks, crescendos, and clever turns of phrase nearly always in the right place.

Recommending this album seems too light a course of action; requiring it may be more apt. Consider Hold on Now, Youngster...highly required, then.

Spirited and frenetic, Hold On adds up to more than just the sum of the band's five-star libraries. [Apr 2008, p.100]

Their debut album is a riotous cacophony of perfectly sculpted indie boisterousness.

While their coming-of-age tales entertain some, it's their 'us versus the world ' spirit that makes this such an enthralling debut.

In terms of mere diversion, though, the perfectly titled Hold On Now, Youngster… is best administered in small amounts; otherwise, you run the risk of overdose.

Los Campesinos! are hyper-literate college kids out to make big statements from microcosmic situations, but the metaphors in the overly abstract lyrics often get away from Gareth and co-vocalist Aleks.

A glockenspiel in a guitar band? Freshens up the sound, they think. And they're right.

Chock-full of glockenspiel, keyboards, hand claps and boy-girl harmonies, Youngster is playful and fun.

Hold On Now, Youngster... overflows with irony, pumping out bright indie-pop songs with titles such as “... And We Exhale And Roll Our Eyes In Unison” and “This Is How You Spell ‘HAHAHA, We Destroyed The Hopes And Dreams Of A Generation Of Faux-Romantics.’”

A welcome throwback to the raw energy of early Kill Rock Star bands, this delirious debut still boasts enough cheeky vigor to sound fresh and new.

For a band about whom most of the talk (pro and con) has focused on their unrelenting giddiness, Los Campesinos! have produced a debut that's surprisingly muddled emotionally.

However much Los Campesinos! need a good editor--both for its music and lyrics--a red pen would only ruin the fun.

Cynics and those who just don’t feel it may claim instead that this is, at best, just a collection of good songs, with witty lyrics, without much dynamic variation; but I tell you today, five or ten or 20 years from now, the only way we won’t be speaking of Hold on Now, Youngster… as a classic will be if Los Campesinos! have already topped it.

Even Youngster’s more modest near-ballads, like 'My Year in Lists,' preserve the band’s boisterous style through outlandish lyrics (“You said, ‘Send me stationery to make me horny’/So I always write you letters in multi-colors”) and ecstatic delivery, making twee fare like long-distance relationships or working in a bookstore seem like serious pop paydirt.

The Welsh band's debut full-length captures more believable, crackling punk energy than most hardcore bands.

Hold On Now, Youngster is the proverbial promising debut, brimming with attitude, ideas and oomph. We await their next move with interest.

The band's full-length debut continues where last year's "Sticking Fingers Into Sockets" EP left off. [Winter 2008, p.82]

LC! balance their more precious tendencies-winsome vocals, chiming xylophone--with a sharp wit and ideas that arrive in energetic tumbles. [Mar 2008, p.88]

Thanks to a sneaky sense of emo self-awareness and shambling, expansive instrumentation, they avoid cute overload. [Apr 2008, p.80]

More variety is needed and it's all been done before, but rarely with such a sense of fun. [Apr 2008, p.108]

Youngster is only temporarily satisfying. [June 2008, p.135]

It might be one big, saccharine, catchy fuck-you to the industry and culture, but it's really just addictive songwriting reared on Britpop pioneers who didn't prioritize reputation over substance.

The tasteful kiddy nature and contrastingly mature metaphors, literary lessons and appropriate disdain, all end with a sense of urgency, making for an impressively full album [Winter 2008, p.100]

It's the sort of album that at times sounds like the group simply threw everything against the wall and hoped that something would stick. In many cases, it did, but in others it sounds like a raucous mess.