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Los Campesinos! return with "I Broke Up In Amarante", the first single from new LP Sick Scenes

10 November 2016, 15:00 | Written by Laurence Day

Los Campesinos! are back with "I Broke Up In Amarante", the stunning lead single from Sick Scenes, their first record since 2013.

The indie-pop collective released a Christmas EP back in 2014, but their last actual record came in the form of 2013's excellent opus No Blues.

"I Broke Up In Amarante" is the stellar first taste - it's hook-filled and lyrically brilliant (as always), with a heavier bent than earlier material. Raucous guitars and tantrum drums coagulate into a punky brew of gorgeous gloriousness - it's good have you back, Los Camp.

"We recorded the album, co-produced by long-time collaborator John Goodmanson and band member Tom Bromley, during Euro 2016 in Fridao, Portugal," a self-penned press release explains. "The album exists as an expression of the pent-up aggression we felt due to being inactive for so long, but it’s also a celebration of just getting to be a band, of getting to play music with our friends. Thematically the record is concerned with fumbling for personal relevance while trying to be a better person. Repressing anxiety and attempting to function while constantly maintaining the perfect two beer buzz. It is set upon a backdrop of non-league football, prescribed medication, and crumbling home towns. These truly are the Sickest Scenes"

Frontman Gareth David says of the new single: "The song’s about battling with bad mental health, trying to comfort and reason with yourself over something you can’t control. Specifically it’s about how my main coping mechanism was to keep myself constantly drunk in the blistering heat of Amarante while being failed by a largely terrible international football tournament."

The band have their own sold-out festival coming next month, with LC! topping a bill that also features ace acts like Shopping and Fear Of Men.

As well as the fest, the group have some headline shows before a lengthy US and UK jaunt next spring. The American shows are their first in half a decade.

Tracklist:

  1. Renato Dall'Ara (2008)
  2. Sad Suppers
  3. I Broke Up In Amarante
  4. A Slow, Slow Death
  5. The Fall Of Home
  6. 5 Flucloxacillin
  7. Here’s To The Fourth Time!
  8. For Whom The Belly Tolls
  9. Got Stendhal’s
  10. A Litany/Heart Swells
  11. Hung Empty

December

  • 3 - Cardiff, Clwb Ifor Bach (SOLD OUT)
  • 4 - Leeds, Us vs Them - Brudenell Social Club (SOLD OUT)
  • 5 - London, Moth Club (SOLD OUT)

April

  • 27 - Liverpool, Arts Centre
  • 28 - Glasgow, Stereo
  • 29 - Sheffield, Queens Social Club
  • 30 - Newcastle, The Cluny

May

  • 1 - London, KOKO
  • 5 - Brighton, The Haunt
  • 6 - Norwich, Arts Centre
  • 7- Birmingham, Hare & Hounds
Sick Scenes is out 24 February via Wichita. You can pre-order it now.
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