death to los campesinos

So, I'd heard a bit of positive stuff about this lot, Los Campesinos, mainly from the lovely Ben and from Sweeping The Nation. At £6 a ticket, I thought I couldn't really go wrong so I hopped along with my good friend Sarah to the Social last night to have a look.

The Social is a great venue. It is small, has a nice little bar and only holds about 250 people. The last time I was in there was to see The Feeling last year - a great little venue for a band I like a lot.

So what of Los Campesinos? Their debut single "We Throw Parties You Throw Knives" is out this week, and, rather unfortunately, the title of the single is way better than the record itself. Indeed, I was pretty bored by the whole thing for the first half an hour or so. Whilst there are lots of them, the whole thing is fundamentally held together by their lead guitarist. The sound was awful and I didn't like the vocals at all. Indeed the singer fella spent most of the time thrashing away at a glockenspiel he had next to him. Not very rock and roll, frankly.

The last two or three songs they did were much better though - better constructed, more tuneful and catchy and so I walked away with a better opinion of them than I would have had half way through. The crowd seemed to love them though, and so I imagine they'll carve a little career out of this (in the short term, anyway).

£6 for a night with mates (I got to meet blog legend Mike also) in a little venue is always worth while though. I also bought the cheapest round of drinks I have ever purchased at a bargain £1.50. Two of us not drinking did contribute some cheapness to a three drink round, t'is true.