Volcanic ash has forced Los Campesinos! to make changes to their tour schedule (photo by Jon Bergman)
Canceled: April 17 (21), Maxwell’s, 1039 Washington St., Hoboken, $20, 9:00
Rescheduled: April 26, Irving Plaza, 17 Irving Pl., $20, 9:00
www.myspace.com/loscampesinos
www.livenation.com
www.maxwellsnj.com
Los Campesinos! fully deserve the exclamation point at the end of their name, as they do everything in a big way. There’s plenty of big and nothing dull about their new album, ROMANCE IS BORING (Arts & Crafts, January 2010), fifteen blasts of loud, hip-shaking power pop that mixes in ’80s new wave, punk, funk, and blaring horns into its anthemic, aggressive party rock (and we mean that in a good way). Their follow-up to 2007’s STICKING FINGERS INTO SOCKETS, 2008’s HOLD ON NOW, YOUNGSTER, and last year’s WE ARE BEAUTIFUL, WE ARE DOOMED, their latest disc emits the endless glee of Matt & Kim and the deep, dark yearning of My Bloody Valentine. The seven-piece Cardiff band sings about vomit and physics (“In Media Res”), phallic cake and cauterized ventricles (“Romance Is Boring”), toilet walls and huffing a Sharpie (the driving “We’ve Got your Back [Documented Emotional Breakdown Number 2]”), erections and heat rash (the synth-heavy “A Heat Rash in the Shape of the Show Me State; or, Letters from Me to Charlotte”), plugholes and piss-soaked jeans (the relatively calm “Coda: A Burn Scar in the Shape of the Sooner State”), and petrol and dog shot (the orchestral “I Just Sighed, I Just Sighed, Just So You Know”) in songs that are as fanciful as their titles. Everything they are about is encapsulated in the epic-sounding “This Is a Flag. There Is No Wind,” a three-and-a-half-minute journey through indie music. Los Campesinos! was forced to cancel its April 17 (then April 21) gig at Maxwell’s because volcanic ash prevented them from getting out of Europe, and they have rescheduled their Irving Plaza for April 26 (originally set for April 22). “One thing I am certain of,” Gareth Campesinos! promised upon announcing the canceled and rescheduled concerts, “when we make it to you, these are going to be the most violently euphoric shows we have ever played.”