Los Campesinos! finds its dynamic

One of the more entertaining bands on Arts & Crafts who aren't Broken Social Scene, Los Campesinos! have unleashed a fun, dancey monster of an album with "Hold On Now, Youngster...," their debut full-length and precursor to their second full-length ("We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed," to be released this October).

Taking the spastic musicality of groups like BSS or Architecture In Helsinki, the Welsh seven-piece (who all go by the last name of Campesinos!) have taken quirky indie-pop and infused it with a joy typically found in nonsensical pieces, and a refinement typically found in more somber works.

Songs like "Broken Heartbeats Sound Like Breakbeats" and "Knee Deep at ATP" drop contemporary pop culture references as casually as any rapper, but do so without pretension or aggression. "Drop It, Doe Eyes" might be the best example of a pure pop gem on the album. Oscillating between bouncy Brit-pop and spacey chamber pop, the song boasts an incredible hook and features the most dramatic buildup on the album.

What really makes these songs soar is the band's knack for dynamics. While so many bands today use a dynamic bell-curve (or, worse yet, predictable shifts at every verse and chorus), Los Campesinos! know that it's not only permissible but extremely effective to punctuate songs with gang vocals, strings, guitars, keyboards and break beats at literally any point with no warning.

One of the most instantly lovable albums by one of the most instantly lovable bands to be released so far in 2008, "Hold On Now, Youngster-" is hopefully only an indicator of what's to come. In less than two months, the follow-up album of ten all-new songs will hit shelves; if it's of the same uniform quality as this one, Los Campesinos! will have secured their place as modern indie-pop royalty.