Los Campesinos! Straight Outta Cardiff

Hailing from Cardiff, Wales, buzz band Los Campesinos! has just released its third and most ambitious full length release yet in Romance Is Boring, and lead guitarist and principal songwriter Tom Campesinos! (every member of the band has adopted the surname Campesinos ala The Ramones) seems genuinely surprised when I mention that I took to the record right away

“Really?” he asks in disbelief. “Most people have said it’s taken them a few listens.”

This is surprising considering how energetic, powerful, and just plain catchy the new record is. Recorded in two stints, one at Carriage House, Connecticut, where the Pixies produced and mixed Doolittle, as well as at Jason McGurr of Death Cab For Cutie’s new studio in Seattle, Romance Is Boring is the band’s biggest and most complex sounding effort to date.

A seven-piece band formed in early 2006 at Cardiff University, none of Los Campesinos! (Tom, Neil, Gareth, Ellen, Harriet, Ollie, and Aleks) are actually Welsh. The band’s moniker is a Spanish word (Neil apparently took Spanish at school and recalled liking the word) that means “peasant” or “country person.”

Not so cynical that any of the band members are done with romance just yet, Tom explains his fondness for the title Romance Is Boring.

“The phrase to me sounds like the words of a defeated romantic trying unconvincingly to attest that he was never interested in romance anyway. At the same time, you can double up the meaning of ‘boring’ in the sense of boring into you. It does take over you. I think that’s one of the reasons I like the title, that it does work on a number of levels. We are aware of the ironies, and how the album is sort of obsessed and completely driven by romance.”

Not concerned with image or popularity, the guitarist/songwriter explains with a hint of pride, “We’re aware that we’re a very unfashionable band. We’re not making music that is particularly trendy.”

While the band might not be concerned with trends or fashion, they do seem pleasantly surprised where they find themselves these days.

“We’re a bunch of university students who started a band without having any expectations of success,” Tom confesses. “This is beyond the wildest dreams any of us had when we started playing. Maybe this is the high point and the rest of our lives will be a slow decline into obscurity, trading off the early success of Los Campesinos!” ▼

Catch Los Campesinos! at the El Rey on May 8th. For more info see www.myspace.com/loscampesinos.