2. Los Campesinos! - Hello Sadness
Shortly before the band were due to start recording this, their fourth album, front man Gareth Campesinos! was dumped by his then girlfriend at the time. Left broken and with a book of love songs his head and heart were no longer parallel with, he decided to scrap them and start afresh.
The band continued with their plans, heading to Girona, Spain, whilst Gareth penned a new, more visceral set of lyrics inside the space of just three weeks. In their own words, Hello Sadness is "ten songs of love, loss and heartbreak nail-gunned to a back-drop of broken, tangled bodies, creeping, dead-eyed animals, suffocating, looming shadows and World Cup exits".
The tracklisting serves as a well oiled timeline of events. From the breakup itself on opener By Your Hand ("I'm not sure if it's love anymore, but I've been thinking of you fondly for sure"), the kiss and tell confessional of Songs About Your Girlfriend ("Although I always made her purr like a cat, she said I never made her smile like that") through to the self-loathing Baby I've Got The Death Rattle further downstream ("In the frost I drew a dick for every girl that wouldn't fuck me/ Woke early the next morning find the frost had bit me").
Whilst Hello Sadness is unapologetically their 'break up album', it's also a raw documentary in it's honesty. Full of uncomfortable twists and turns and at times too graphic and telling to digest. Under the circumstances, nonetheless, it's a triumph. Chin up, Gareth.
My favourite tracks: 'By Your Hand', 'Songs About Your Girlfriend' , 'To Tundra' & 'Baby I Got The Death Rattle'.
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