2000s Indie/Rock Roundup with Los Campesinos, Camera Obscura, The Decemberists, Cloud Nothings, & Cage The Elephant: Rapid Fire Reviews
For this bulky rapid-fire reviews segment I gathered together 5 bands who to varying degrees of commercial success and critical acknowledgment, occupied the blog-driven world of indie and alternative rock in the late 2000s. Many of their contemporaries have fade, but these five are still going strong to extremely varying degrees of success in 2024.
All Hell - Los Campesinos!
Verbose indie-punk outfit Los Campesinos have been quiet with studio albums since 2017, but their presence has never faded. Whether that's due to the many bands who are obviously influenced directly by their vibrant, youthful sound and lyrical snark, or because they dropped an EP a few years ago and some compilation material since then, the band still feels much more relevant than others from their era. I was on board with this new record right out of the gate when I heard the fantastic lead single Feast Of Tongues. It sees the band channeling their righteousness into pinpoint catchy songwriting with numerous lyrical highlights sprinkled throughout. That irresistible frenetic energy matched with sharp, and occasionally slightly cringey songwriting also kicks the album off with the roaring one-two punch of The Coin-Op Guillotine and Holy Smoke as well.
Occasionally the cringier side of the band's songwriting that has always been present emerges. The worst example is the laughable punk gatekeeping on Long Throes. Another good example is To Hell In A Handjob which, yes, is a ridiculous name for a song, but it thankfully doesn't quite live up to that premise. I actually like, or at the very least tolerate some of its more optimistic lyrics playing on the misguided pessimism of others. kms is also perhaps a bit evocative of a song title but it was my second favorite of the singles and it serves as a major highlight on the second half of the record. It's one of those songs Los Campesinos! has done so many times that's achingly sentimental but caked in enough of their sharp lyrical detail that it never feels cheesy.
The record uses a few interludes to split itself into ostensibly 4 parts. One thing I will say is that some of the weakest tracks on the record and my least favorite single show up in the record's final run. It's an unfortunately dull way to end off an otherwise pretty exciting record. Despite that blip for the most part I think this is a really strong return from Los Campesinos!. The band is absolutely as messy as ever but on All Hell they remind me of exactly why I learned to love that mess in the first place. 7/10
Look to the East, Look to the West - Camera Obscura
Camera Obscura are a Scottish indie pop outfit that I've always thought are pretty underrated. Much of my acclaim for the group came from their third album Let's Get Out Of This Country. It was their only record released on Merge at the time of member Carey Lander's death in 2015, which led to the band's hiatus. Now they've returned with a 6th album 11 years after their previous effort, which once again arrives via Merge.
Look gets off to a strong start with a few of its singles. The spectacular Liberty Print kicks the record off, a song I've been obsessed with since I first heard it. And that's followed by We're Going To Make It In A Man's World, whose gentle tugging and optimistic outlook have grown on me quite a bit. Even the lead single Big Love, which I wasn't crazy about when it first dropped, has grown on me substantially. That even carries into the fluttering Only A Dream highlighted by beautiful piano and warbling synths around one of the most patient compositions the record has to offer.
But the real question is could the record sustain that level of quality. I've come around to the track Sleepwalking quite a bit and not just because it ticks off Lavender bingo by mentioning ketamine. I also love some of the contradiction forlorn lyrics that try and handle the delicate balance of talking about a relationship. And speaking of irresistible keys, they show up again in full force on Denon, one of the liveliest songs in the record's second half. I'm also pretty fond of the title track that ends the record off in a delightful sway. While this record may not have the most diverse sound palette it does execute consistently and the overall poise it deploys prevents its boring moments from feeling like actual duds. What results is a strong comeback from the band that reminded me of how much I loved them in the first place, and added plenty of great new songs to their catalog. 7.5/10
As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again - The Decemberists
While The Decemberists have only been away for 6 years, it feels like a lot longer than that since they've been at their peak. While I did enjoy the 2018 Traveling On EP quite a bit, neither of the band's last two records really did much for me. And you have to go even further back, all the way to 2006 to find their landmark masterwork The Crane Wife. But regardless I wasn't going to let a band whose made as much material that I absolutely love as The Decemberists just slip by without some kind of review. Part of that came from hesitancy revolving the singles. Lead single Burial Ground recruits Shins frontman James Mercer and resembles the very trite indie pop that both bands have settled into with their most recent works. All I Want Is You also seems to settle into a really predictable flow right out of the gate and never really reaches a point that's any more interesting to me.
But the singles certainly aren't a total wash. The 4th and final single Oh No! is easily the best and sees the band spinning a hilarious tongue-in-cheek story around these jungle drums and soaring horn lines. I also liked the closing track Joan In The Garden as a single and it's even better serving as an absolutely epic finale to the record. There are essentially two kinds of songs on the record. One of its stylistic tricks is familiar for The Decemberists, a very poetic embrace of folk music stylings. While all these songs are obviously "lyrical" numerous tracks embody that claim in a MUCH older sense. Strangely enough as someone who is more a fan of the band's older work, it's the more contemporary indie folk and indie pop jams that clicked with me the most on the album. Long White Veil is a killer deep cut that's been stuck in my head for weeks. I also love the slow-unfolding and narratively sharp The Black Maria a bit later on the record.
Ultimately, the biggest issues with As It Ever Was could have been solved with a little quality control. There's plenty of solid songs on the album, in fact, some of the best tracks I've heard from the band in years turn up here. But with so much time dedicated to its admittedly quite epic finale, I can't help but wonder if the tracklist should have been slimmed down a bit. But at the end of the day I'm thankful the band is returning to their A-game, even if it's only for about half the album. 6/10
Final Summer - Cloud Nothings
Of all the bands here Cloud Nothings are probably the outfit for whom I have both the most consistent and most recent love for. The band's run of albums in the 2010s was spectacular producing at minimum two modern punk classics and two underrated gems. I even kind of liked their first post-COVID album The Shadow I Remember which saw them turning fully into the fusion of indie pop and pop punk that their sound is most defined by today. That's also the case on Final Summer whose sound palette features elements distinctly snarling but also irresistibly bright. That's present on its first two singles, the title track and opener which dropped last year and the even better Running Through The Campus whose youthful buoyancy has been delighting me all year. That isn't to say there aren't outliers though. I'd Get Along overcomes a weak chorus with a ferocity and dizzying sonic intensity the band hasn't had in a while.
But for a band that's spun together compositions as epic as Wasted Days and Dissolution in the past, a surprising issue with this record is songs that unfold in the most monotonous ways possible. Both Daggers Of Light and Silence suffer from exactly that in the first half of the record and with a tracklist so short it can be a real momentum killer. While those are the two worst examples, the issue of repetition that doesn't actually raise the intensity persists throughout much of the second half. While Running Through The Campus and the sentimental closer Common Mistake may be the outliers, it's not exactly like they're dropping their best material either. On Final Summer I can't say the wheels have fallen off of Cloud Nothings. There are too many moments where either their distinctive ferocity or knack for catchy, punchy songwriting shines through. But too much of this record is flat-out dry, repetitive in a way that feels monotonous, and sonically uninspired compared to much of their work in the past. This is unfortunately the biggest shrug of an album the band has released yet, arguably even including their Bandcamp exclusives. 5/10
Neon Pill - Cage The Elephant
Cage The Elephant are a band I like quite a bit for the most part. Before this record they were 5 albums deep and save for their sophomore dud Thank You Happy Birthday I have positive feelings towards all of them. The band has been away for 5 years at this point, but I had absolutely no reason to suspect that their 6th record wouldn't be just as good as much of their previous work. That was at least, until I heard the singles. Lead single Neon Pill is a lyrical landmine but it at least has flashes of catchy refrains. The worst of the bunch is the pub rocker Good Time which seems content on relying on a combination of blue-collar charisma and haunted house synths neither of which they're able to pull off well. Finally, there's Metaverse, whose best feature is the fact that it's only a brief two minutes and change. ,
What's crazy is that the record gets off to a halfway decent start. While the opener HiFi isn't a standout song or anything it could have easily fit in on the band's solid 2018 record Social Cues as a deep cut and it honestly gave me the impression the record could grow on me. But it immediately falls about with Rainbow whose absolutely awful chorus features lyrics that should be WELL below Cage The Elephant's pen game at this point. Float Into The Sky is a completely forgettable dud until it has this awful garish electronic breakdown in the final minute.
It isn't exactly ALL terrible. If there's a savior among the singles it's the ballad Out Loud which is a breath of fresh air from a performance standpoint in the middle of the record. Even if it has some lyrics that I think could have used another look, I'll take it. Even then the final run of tracks on the record largely avoid being supremely awful, but that's because they largely avoid being anything. This record is such a fall from grace it almost seems impossible. It's a far worse record than even Thank You Happy Birthday and seemingly features absolutely none of the swagger and pointed songwriting that has always defined the band's image. But the far FAR worse absence is a lack of almost any good lyricism or songwriting throughout basically the entire album. I almost can't believe how much I didn't like this. 3/10
