Over a decade has passed since their debut LP and Los Campesinos! have managed to remain relevant in a time where the vast majority of their original peers are no longer making music. The seven-piece have carved a niche out for themselves of melancholy-drenched indie under the backdrop of obscure, delicate lyrics from Gareth David. Sick Scenes is the band’s sixth record and comes three years after No Blues – the longest the band have gone without releasing music. This also included a period in which they questioned their own existence.

Thankfully, they vowed to continue and with it has come one of their finest albums. Co-produced by long-time collaborator John Goodmanson and band member Tom Bromley under the setting of Euro 2016 in Portugal, the group found themselves living in the country of the eventual winners, whilst simultaneously witnessing their home nation vote to leave the European Union.

Be it prescribed medication or crumbling home towns, the ‘sick scenes’ sung about by David are as downhearted and miserable as ever. He has the uncanny knack of penning deeply thoughtful writings with meaningful personal attachment embedded within them, yet still manages to make them relatable and open to interpretation to each listener.

‘I Broke Up In Amarante’, for example, references mental health and coping with alcohol in the sweltering heat of mid-summer Iberia. One of the many obscure references to football also features on this track. Here David sings about his attempts to convey emotion about a penalty miss to a Portuguese barman who he shares no common language with:

“The newspaper front on the counter top/Emblazoned spot kick miss/I couldn't even hum in your mother tongue/Just a thumbs down raspberry kiss.”

LC! have always had an attachment to football, but only in the last few albums has David accepted that his love for the game lends itself to the music his band are making, “To me, football is an incredibly natural thing to write about,” he recently told a football podcast. “I resisted it for a long time. As a precocious arty guy who surrounded himself with ‘alternative culture’ I thought that was the opposite to what football was, but now I realise how foolish I was being”.

The songwriter recognised that the broad experiences you can have with the sport, be it highs or lows, are untainted romance in essence and, being that most songwriting is about love and death, that is just what football is. Whether it’s a last minute equaliser or a crippling relegation.

But it isn’t just the beautiful game which brings out his poignant lyricisms:

“A stack of words in my throat/A trail of slime/Forehead on fruit machine/Four bells that won’t chime.”

Coming from one of the album’s slower and more intense moments ‘A Litany/Heart Swells’, this line perfectly exhibits his ability to translate a customary everyday situation into a heart-breaking and vivid lyric. The album is littered with references to the depression he suffers with. Another example emerges from ‘5 Flucloxacillin’ – one of the album’s more traditional LC! tracks:

“Another blister pack pops/But I still feel much the same/Thirty-one, and depression is a young man's game.”

From the sparkling pop of closer ‘Hung Empty’, to the disco-infused ‘Renato Dall’Ara (2008)’, Sick Scenes encapsulates what it feels to be a millennial growing up in the UK during this time of tense political situations, national identity debates and social upheaval. As always, Los Campesinos! are a voice for the disconsolate and lonely, and they are more needed now than they have ever been.

Paul Hill

Website: loscampesinos.com
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