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We are Beautiful, We Are Doomed Image
Metascore
82

Universal acclaim - based on 22 Critic Reviews What's this?

User Score
8.3

Universal acclaim- based on 29 Ratings

  • Summary: The second release for the Welsh indie-pop band was recorded in two weeks.
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 20 out of 22
  2. Negative: 0 out of 22
  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. "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.
  5. 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.
  6. For Los Campesinos! to come up with such a strong follow-up not even a year after their last is an amazing feat.
  7. Q Magazine
    60
    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]

See all 22 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 11 out of 11
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 11
  3. Negative: 0 out of 11
  1. LeahT.
    Jan 20, 2010
    10
    Brilliant, although not at first - Los Campesinos! requires always a few listens - and then you wonder how you ever lived without them.
  2. KevinS.
    Dec 26, 2008
    10
    Very good.
  3. Clayw.
    Nov 27, 2008
    10
    This album blows me away. I enjoyed HON, Y immensely, but i think that this just explodes them to a higher place. Los Campesinos! has done This album blows me away. I enjoyed HON, Y immensely, but i think that this just explodes them to a higher place. Los Campesinos! has done everything that a band shouldnt do, and it has worked perfectly. I loved this from beginning to end, and i hope that the world gets on the Los Campesinos! band Wagon, before it gets going too fast. Expand
  4. MikeT
    Jan 18, 2009
    10
    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 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. Expand
  5. PeteW
    Dec 15, 2008
    9
    Lovely. More heartfelt than the first. Roll on the next 8 months.
  6. JohnH.
    Dec 20, 2008
    9
    Energetic and sincere, the most fun you'll have being depressed.
  7. NoahH.
    Nov 26, 2008
    8
    This should have been a 6-track EP. That doesn't mean it's still not very good. We will probably disagree about which 4 songs This should have been a 6-track EP. That doesn't mean it's still not very good. We will probably disagree about which 4 songs should have been left out. I've read that the album was originally spawned from a session designed to produce B-Sides . . . given that knowledge it's not a surprise that are some misses. But even when Los Campesinos misses, it's not without effort and enthusiasm. And when they hit (which they do 6 out of 10 times here . . . not a bad batting average) they knock it out of the park. Expand

See all 11 User Reviews