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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed albums.

Romance Is Boring

EMAILPRINTby Los Campesinos!

Los Campesinos! reviews
82
9.4 User Score:

Album Info

Label: Arts & Crafts

Release Date: 26 January 2010

Discs: 1 disc

Genre(s): Rock, Indie

Summary

The latest album for the Welsh rock band was recorded in Connecticut and Seattle, with Xiu Xiu's Jamie Stewart, Parenthetical Girls' Zac Pennington, and Dead Science's Jherek Bischoff appearing as guests.

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

90

PopMatters

What makes this possibly the best album of the band’s career is that it represents how sonic exploration can actually go right.

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83

The Onion (A.V. Club)

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.

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80

NOW Magazine

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

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80

Clash Music

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.

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80

Drowned In Sound

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.

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80

Alternative Press

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

80

musicOMH.com

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.

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75

The Phoenix

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 æsthetic.

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70

Spin

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

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70

Under The Radar

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]

70

Paste Magazine

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.

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60

Tiny Mix Tapes

The album is a carefully crafted rollercoaster of emotional and auditory highs and lows, exhibiting the group's subtle growth since its major breakout, "We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed."

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this album is 9.4 (out of 10) based on 11 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

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