Sick Scenes by Los Campesinos!

Like a fine wine, Welsh indie pop collective Los Campesinos! have only gotten better with age. In their sixth full-length release, Sick Scenes, the tracks are rife with the familiar angst and melancholy that is reminiscent of their former albums, but with a fresh energy. Released on the 24th of February, this is perhaps their strongest album to date, with an orchestrated composition of ebullient pop combined with witty lyricism about the anxieties surrounding adulthood. It is an album that is, in short, characteristically Los Camp.  
 
Although Los Campesinos! are yet to break into mainstream indie listening, their work has consistently improved since their very first album nine years ago (Hold on Now, Youngster…). Their 2010 release ‘Romance is Boring‘ was crowded instrumentally, but was deeply affecting all the same. Two albums later, they’d really come into their own in No Blues (2013), which marked a pretty significant shift in their musical careers. Although it was filled with the same football references that were present in their earlier work, there was a clear change – this album, still as clever and thoughtful, was almost hopeful, if not happy. It was filled with taut, radiant melodies which emanated a new quality not really heard by Los Camp before.  


Despite the notable maturing of their sound, Sick Scenes heralds back to their earlier work. As lead vocalist, Gareth David (a.k.a. Gareth Campesinos!), stresses both in the lyrics of the album and elsewhere, he and his bandmates are as uncertain as ever. He admits in an interview with The 405 that this stems partially from a “quarter-life crisis.” 
 
Sick Scenes poignantly shifts focus towards the band’s anxiety about the future. In ‘Hung Empty’, Gareth sings that it’s “not right to call this old age/but it certainly ain’t youth.” This sentiment is echoed in the wistful ‘5 Flucloxacillin‘, as he reflects that “depression is a young man’s game.”  
 
‘The Fall of Home’, which some fans have suggested is a direct response to the political upheaval of Brexit, encapsulates the perfect balance between youthful nostalgia and the bewilderment of adulthood. It articulates the sense of loss and displacement that arises from such political actions: “Another family friend fell sick/Gave the Fascists a thousand ticks.” It highlights the feeling that arise after you leave home, only to realise that it’s not necessarily that much better elsewhere.  
 
Los Campesinos! have always been excellent, but this album has the potential to see them emerge as one of the great talents of the indie pop genre. The album is, in some ways, not dissimilar to their others, but it is without a doubt the most aesthetically beautiful, and worth listening to over and over.