Los Campesinos!
Hold on Now, Youngster…
April 1st 2008
Arts & Crafts
If Kids Incorporated were to return to the pop cultural radar screen, they would blip to the tune of this unabashedly juvenile band. Los Campesinos! are a group of 7 Welsh youths that have generated what could turn out to be the future prototype for indie pop, or their fifteen minutes may have passed so fast that their influence came and went before the record ever hit the shelves. Hold on Now, Youngster… is a collection of high energy multi-instrument explosions that have been in the works for the better part of 2 years. It is without a doubt one of the most saccharine records I have ever heard. But to its credit, Hold on Now, Youngster… induces excellent spirits as well as that ever elusive urge to dance. It is contrived and trite, sung poorly, harmonies and violins out of tune with the shallowest appeal to be described as punk rock. It is like seeing a 3 year old with a Mohawk on the hip of a Prada draped mother. That having been said, perhaps their naivety is their most attractive aspect.
If Kids Incorporated fails to return then Los Campensinos! should seriously consider their own show. The assembled appearance and style found everywhere from their scratched out and then rewritten lyrics in the album art, to the deliberate branding of their name in their music videos. Hell I even received a baggy of mini-pins with their logo all over it when I bought the record. Their lyrics are clever enough and the instrumentation is really interesting. But there is a youth factor that has been to good effect exploited by bands such as Tokyo Police Club and Born Ruffians. However Los Campesinos! have formulized the attitude and spiked it with a little overt Go! Team Britishness, truncating the ultimate appeal of their music. Another exclamation point? Despite of all of this nose thumbing, Los Campesinos! succeeded in making an extraordinarily fun and energetic record, which complicates much of the criticism levied.
Broken Social Scene Presents: Kevin Drew
Spirit If…
Arts & Crafts
September 18th 2007
Spirit If… has a message for me louder than the music. Kevin Drew is the heart of my affection for Broken Social Scene. With the Broken Social Scene Presents project underway, various members are releasing albums centered on the individualistic contributions to the whole. Broken Social Scene has always been associated with big shows with a dozen or so music makers romping the stage, instilling a fervor and zeal in the audience rarely witnessed outside the confines of an evangelical church. Some bands find ways to individualize their traditionally collective sound by striping off some of the layers, exposing the bare bones of the focal band members. Other times band members get involved in a series of solo projects, wishing that their musical prowess be recognized in and of itself. After a few years of collective recognition and association some musicians yearn for their own identity. Sometimes validation can only occur under a spotlight, away from the muddling impositions of others’ ideas. Still other bands go the way of Outkast and Broken Social Scene, releasing albums that deliver the full effect of the collective band, but under the direction and as an expression of one member. While the direction originates from a defined personality, many members of Broken Social Scene have come together to realize the vision of the popped collar king.
Suicides and fucked up kids dominate the lyrical themes of Spirit If…. This, as much as any layered instrumentation, is a part of Broken Social Scene’s genetics. The album begins with the droney, off center, and coterminally lumpy and charming song Farewell to the Pressure Kids. The first track introduces the psychedelic environment in which Mr. Drew constructs his warped reality. Too Beautiful to Fuck follows as an intimate love song and a beautiful exhalation expressing a calm adoration of beauty with a sweet and crude realism. The most progressive and impressive track on Spirit If… is Frightening Lives. His vocals are purposefully intense and the dingy guitars are fortified with synthesized rhythms and casiotone accents. I will remember every word to this song and play it at every party. While it is important to evaluate a solo endeavor on its own merits, and to resist using previous collaborations as a criterion or point of comparison, Spirit If… illustrates the difficulty in ignoring how much Broken Social Scene’s identity is rooted within Kevin Drew, not the other way around.
The beauty of Spirit If… is its clarity. While Brendan Canning, Justin Peroff, and the rest of the gang are important to Broken Social Scene’s makeup, Kevin Drew’s effort best distills the mode in which Broken Social Scene operates. The lyrics are quirky and delicious. Even careless strings like “They say size doesn’t count but my heart is a house” make me jealous of Mr. Drew’s ability to transform awkward phrases into meaningful supplications. The drums are loose, metronomically switching between the snare and high hat. Nearly all of my favorite aspects of Broken Social Scene are encapsulated in this record. Kevin Drew hasn’t sounded this tender since You Forgot It in People. It is almost as if their self titled record, while fucking amazing, incorporated so much that Drew’s soft and tender voice was lost amongst a symphony and Spirit If… has surfaced to reclaim that space once occupied and delimited by his own creative moments. In 2008 Brendan Canning will release his own record. I am sure that as other albums are released, I’ll be similarly impressed by the manner in which the essence of Broken Social Scene is captured. Perhaps it is true that the parts make a whole, but Kevin Drew has certainly claimed a large piece for himself.
