Los Campesinos! hones angst in fourth album
As a whole, "Hello Sadness" forms a complete narrative, a musical monument to frontman Gareth Campesinos' failed relationship. Despite the overplayed subject of lost love, Los Campesinos! does not passively accept the paradigms for heartbreak albums set by such releases as Bob Dylan's "Blood on the Tracks," Beck's "Sea Change" or even Bon Iver's "For Emma, Forever Ago." Instead, "Hello Sadness" tracks Campesinos' relationship with all the melodramatic hyperbole that could only be borne of the irrational histrionics of a lovelorn griever.