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Quirky noisy Los Campesinos! release their fourth cd, "No Blues" with their opening shot over the bellows (for you English majors I am using bellows), "You say you are an old cassette that has gone and spilt its spool you're far more like a wet cardboard tube on this nightclub toilet floor" from "For Flotsam".

The first track sets up this CD as an instant lyrical music masterpiece. New independent bands seem to be drawn to trying to relive a sound that they missed out on. Los Campesinos! has been making their lo-fi, toy keyboard, "Go Team" pop noise for at least three proper CD's. Their new release unveils a new model for 2014, with better production and less toy keyboards and a more mature sound with a greater emphasis on the songwriting.

Make no mistake, this is still Los Campesinos!, and it is still quirky but with less noisy pop. As all the band members are named Campesinos it gets murky who the main lyrical and vocal influence is, but according to other Internet sources it is Garth. Whomever the lead Campesionos is, this CD is their best and the lyrics and subtle but effective sound on this CD portrays the band's common themes of lost love, death, lust, sex, London and yes football (soccer). I had to look up many soccer terms that are included in the lyrics that American fans like me will not understand.
Garth Campesinos makes clever use of the English language, with "If you're the casket door that's being slammed upon me, I'll be a plague cross painted on your naked body", on the track "What Death Leaves Behind". There are probably Goth bands who would die (sic) for that lyric.

On "Cemetery Gaits" the Campesinos make a play on words with cemetery gates. As they do on the song "Glue Me". "I'll be gloomy till they glue me in the arms of she who loves me" they belt out in a subtle chorus. Sapid indeed.

The single, "Avocado Baby" melds serious lyrics with the absurd chorus, "A heart of stone, rind so tough it's crazy, that's why they call me the avocado baby".

This CD, while I don't think it is meant to be a conceptual idea, ends up being one. Like any good storytelling it has a great opening statement, then songs that support it, and finally the conclusion, "Selling Rope(Swan Dive to Estuary)". "As I swan dive into the estuary, the birds do not flinch at my fall, They perch in the rafters, they do not notice me at all"
all lyrics (c) Los Campesinos!