Romance Is Boring

It might’ve made a better EP than LP. But even at their brattiest, the Welsh indie-rockers in Los Campesinos are a tough lot to hate. Their cacophony of instruments and voices aptly conveys what the music is about.

Romance Is Boring smacks of that feeling, knowing more than before but still trying to hash out just where to go with it. It's fun watching bands grow; it's been a pleasure watching this band grow up.

While unquestionably delivering more of the goods fans are sure to get excited about, on their new record, Los Campesinos! also prove they aren't one-trick ponies, boasting some welcome musical and conceptual range.

Romance may be boring, but this ambitious triumph is anything but. [Feb 2010, p.96]

It’s exhilarating, cheeky, Pavement-influenced indie rock that’ll leave you exhausted – and maybe anxious – by track 15.

Romance Is Boring is another step up for the Cardiff seven-piece; avoiding the shoutier, brattier elements of debut ‘Hold On Now, Youngster...’, the band bring to their latest effort a much darker atmosphere, with similarly desperate lyrics.

Their sloganeering, haughtiness and mocking dismissal of their dislikes will always remain contentious, but never suggest they don’t mean it. This matters more to them than it does anybody else; Romance is Boring is the openly flawed but often brilliant proof.

Romance Is Boring is a triumph, a glistening, breathless success. Musically and lyrically Los Campesions! are a rare treasure of a band at the peak of their considerable powers.

What primarily sets ‘Romance Is Boring’ up as a significant step forward is that it’s incredibly structurally cohesive, and yet blows anything they’ve previously released out of the water in terms of textural intricacy, technical prowess and general experimentation; each track seems to take an element that’s been formerly alluded to and stretch it to a fuller form.

Gareth’s vocal is less shrill these days, his lyrics are less desperate (though just as despairing), and the band’s soundscapes are increasingly diverse....A big step forward.

Romance Is Boring might sound, in description and on wax, very similar to the band’s work, but there’s a palpable confidence here that wasn’t present just an album ago, and it makes Romance Is Boring the key entry in an already ballooning discography.

More serious but still jittery, and not without detritus, this is the album that will decide the longevity of Los Campesinos!.

Romance Is Boring is fun, knowing, astute, energetic and packed with vignettes of youth and love lost.

Their slightly shambolic and unapologetic pop-fused sound works, though, and looks likely to speed Los Campesinos! to the cult canonical Brit-indie status reserved for the other outsider troupes like Belle & Sebastian and The Cribs. [Mar 2010, p.96]

Romance Is Boring doesn't eschew the sugar-high, too-clever angst of its predecessors altogether, but the band have learned how to vary their song structures, often opting for a darker, more atmospheric aesthetic.

Romance is Boring is a strong effort froma dedicated band tgat could use a but more restraint in terms of arrangement, but nonetheless, it's self-asured, deliciously Welsh and--as always--a real god time. [Winter 2010, p.100]

Romance, their third album in 24 months, is more slickly assured -- and far less twee -- than its predecessors.

Romance is Boring is anchored by enough exhilarating moments, big and small, to make trolling for them through the muck a pleasure. [Holiday 2009, p.77]

Fuzzy atmospherics crash in, overpowering some of Romance’s most brutal quips, forcing the band to struggle at making its musings rhythmic and begging for its earlier punk-twee punctuation.

Romance Is Boring would be better-served with more of the diversity that's found on these tracks. But those without dates on Valentine's Day should find some cheer in this danceable collection

Lacking many new moves, Romance doesn't feel as revelatory as Los Campesinos' killer 2008 debut. But its exuberant din is hard to deny on songs like the gorgeous existentialist meditation "In Media Rest," which mixes triumphal horns with lyrics about vomit and corpses.