[review 2008: favourites]

I don’t know who decided that 2008 should be the year a few people decide to remount the whole twee-punk thing, but goddammit, I could kiss you. You’ve singlehandedly saved us from a year full of indie-folk wunderkinds who bore me with their subtle inflections and introspective observations about the mundane life, instead of battering me with yelps and sweet nothings like these young folks from Wales, who are apparently so excited about stuff that they require an exclamation point in their name.

Hold On Now, Youngster is Heavenly on speed, I think. Take that same twee-pop aesthetic that launched a million bands in England and the Pacific Northwest, and speed it up a bunch, then have some ritalin-addled male singer sing some clever turns of phrase over top, and maybe throw in some random hyperactive keyboard. Then break it all down with a surprisingly sweet and contemplative string-infused outro. Congratulations, you’ve just created “Broken Hearts Sounds Like Breakbeats.” The album is full of songs based on variations on this pattern, and it’s the sort of thing you would think would get old fast.

And yet, it doesn’t. Oh, sure, if you’re not the type to abide by twee preciousness in your music, you will probably hate this band as well. But that’s fine, because the rest of us are perfectly happy to don our backpacks and our rimmed glasses and attempt the weakest sauce dance party ever. Los Campesinos! fly the flag of “Twee as Fuck” into a new decade, and though I think there are other bands that do the unabashed enthusiasm thing better (just you wait, impatient one), the kids from Cardiff obviously have a bright future ahead of them. Hell, they managed to record TWO albums this year, so they even managed to get the sophomore slump over with (though I can’t say for sure; I have just acquired said second album and am still performing the initial examination).