Los Campesinos! Hold On Now, Youngster... by: Joseph Coscarelli Mon:24-Mar-08 Label: Arts & Crafts Year: 2008 WB rating 77 out of 100

Los Campesinos!, the scrappy septet of ragtag record store regulars from Wales, have not crafted a weighty, serious record in Hold On Now, Youngster... but the questions it raises are of a personal variety and take a high level of self-awareness to confront. Ask yourself if you have the stomach for this, and be honest; it will save you some time and save us your bitching. Do you finish the sour sugar at the end of a bag candies or do your teeth shiver at the thought? Let this answer guide you.

On their debut, to be released by Broken Social Scene's Arts & Crafts label, the band aren't so much drawing a line in the sand as erecting a wall, standing atop it and throwing eggs at the other side. The divider is Berlin-like, scribbled with grammatically correct graffiti filled with five dollar words and sharp quips. Fact is, they are quite funny. But they are not Calvin Johnson or Jonathan Richman funny; they are not even Stephen Malkmus funny (Pavement is covered on the band's first EP Sticking Fingers Into Sockets). Instead, they delve into diary-level stuff – sometimes personal, usually juvenile and almost always amusing, largely thanks to ringleader Gareth Campesinos! (yes, really). This is a guy who, as admitted on the album's closer, did not have his heart broken by punk rock until the summer of 2007. Not the death of Sid Vicious, 'Lust For Life' hocking Carnival cruises or even the closing of CBGB. Clearly, this statement bubbles with irony, but to even suggest it – the audacity! Granted, this is the band who claimed, "I never cared about Ian MacKaye" and "Calvin Johnson never meant anything to me," on last year's single 'The International Tweexcore Undergound' which featured a Black Flag cover and guest vocals by Johnson himself on the single's B-sides.

And still, the group's frontman (frontkid?) has an asymmetrical haircut and flaunts the K Records hoodie he name-checks on 'Knee-Deep at the ATP', a song which tells the story of puppy love at England's indie-rock festival All Tomorrow's Parties. Live on stage, Gareth is painfully shy and excruciatingly awkward. At the band's debut at New York City's Bowery Ballroom not a word he spoke between songs was discernible, his thick accent garbled in a mess of timid muttering. But something about 7" records gets him off and he not only uses LC! as a backbone, but as an excuse to be downright ballsy.

This is the kind of band that calls the first track on their debut LP 'Death to Los Campesinos!' They have a punctuation mark in their band name. Blasphemous, maybe, but this is the record – brimming with admittedly callow snark and biting one-liners – that Fall Out Boy's Pete Wentz wishes he could write. Just glimpsing at the tracklist you find the Morrissey-influenced, emo-absorbed habit of epic song titles. Los Campesinos!, not to be outdone, include 'This Is How You Spell "Hahaha, We Destroyed The Hopes And Dreams Of A Generation Of Faux-Romantics"' in which a spoken-word breakdown includes a simile that references "a final, fatal LiveJournal entry." So are they serious? The funniest thing is it doesn't matter: they're entertaining.

Take, for instance, in 'My Year In Lists', the chorus approaching precious: "I cherish with fondness the day I met you," but not before the band's lead vocalists take turns injecting snark from the background, and the phrase becomes the deprecating, "I cherish with fondness the day (before) I met you." That song, meanwhile, is for those who could fathom deciding that they "did not believe in the New Year anymore." That is, those who might begrudgingly accept that it's time for a change but "not in places like this, with people like these." Calling it a niche audience would be generous. It can be eye-rolling, cringe-inducing stuff or a laugh-out-loud bull's eye, all depending on the kind of person you are.

The compositions are taut, quick and jubilant, featuring a crowded combination of squealing electric guitars, violin and xylophones. Empty space is nearly nonexistent and even one of the record's few moderately paced tracks, a take on anti-social bookworms titled 'We Are All Accelerated Readers', fails to relent on the caustic pessimism, both inward and outward. When the conversation turns to which Breakfast Club character to identify with, the vocalists engage again in repartee, with Gareth claiming "the one that dies," and upon being informed "no one dies," he chides, "then what's the point?" He continues later, "I'm not Bonnie Tyler and I'm not Toni Braxton and this song is not going to save your relationship." And yet, this sardonic wit and self-flagellation cocktail does not grate – it's the point. You don't chide a Hold Steady record for being verbose, you just say no thanks.

But just as collecting rare 'zines and punk compilations takes a dose of anger – at someone or something, somewhere down the line – it also takes a heap of realisation that it's an insular world. Whether you're resentful because you're alone or alone because you're a drag, you accept near-solitude, surround yourself with like-minded individuals and bitterly take umbrage at a sense of inclusion elsewhere. Again, that is the idea. Dismiss them for their sharp and playful tongues, but do not slight Los Campesinos!'s young hearts and minds for a lack of trying. It's a killjoys club, but there's an exuberance in the way its members tear things down. On '... And We Exhale And Roll Our Eyes In Unison' the band make their mission explicit, realising the bounds of their downer elitism and celebrating the limited unity it creates by singing "Woe is me, woe is you, and is us together," but at some point "woe" turns to "whoa," the meaning of the words is lost and what's left – what matters – is "together."