No Blues (Los Campesinos! album)

No Blues is the fifth studio album by Welsh indie rock band Los Campesinos!. It was released on 29 October 2013 via Wichita Recordings, Turnstile and Heart Swells. The album was produced by John Goodmanson and guitarist Tom Bromley, and is the first to not feature founding bassist Ellen Waddell, who amicably left the group in late 2012.

The first single, "What Death Leaves Behind", was released as a free download on the band's SoundCloud page on 29 August 2013. The second single, "Avocado, Baby", was released on 8 October 2013.

Critical reception
Critical response was positive. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has received an average score of 79, based on 17 reviews. Writing for Pitchfork, Ian Cohen said No Blues "ends up sounding like the happiest [Los Campesinos!] record, or at least the most implicitly hopeful". He claimed the band "have never sounded so muscular or crafted melodies as instantly memorable". Chris Tapley of The Line of Best Fit praised the album's production, in which the band "no longer assert themselves as the most important aspect of the tracks". He called "Selling Rope (Swan Dive to Estuary)" their best closing track and concluded: "No longer a band rough and ready jumping breathlessly between ideas, they are burying their chaos under smooth edges and verdant melodies and it sounds better than ever".

Track listing
All lyrics written by Gareth Paisey, all music composed by Tom Bromley.


 * 1) "For Flotsam" – 3:43
 * 2) "What Death Leaves Behind" – 3:37
 * 3) "A Portrait of the Trequartista as a Young Man" – 3:01
 * 4) "Cemetery Gaits" – 4:52
 * 5) "Glue Me" – 5:04
 * 6) "As Lucerne/The Low" – 4:22
 * 7) "Avocado, Baby" – 4:36
 * 8) "Let It Spill" – 3:20
 * 9) "The Time Before the Last Time" – 2:47
 * 10) "Selling Rope (Swan Dive to Estuary)" – 6:17

Personnel
Los Campesinos!


 * Gareth Paisey
 * Neil Beale
 * Tom Bromley – production, brass and string arrangements, recording
 * Kim Paisey
 * Rob Taylor – art direction, design
 * Jason Adelinia

Additional musicians
 * Cardiff Cougar Allstars Cheerleaders – vocals (track 7)
 * Michael Iles – trumpet
 * Phillip Peterson – strings, recording
 * Craig Walker – trombone

Additional technical and promotional personnel


 * John Goodmanson – production, mixing
 * Mazen Murad – mastering
 * Michael Barrow – photography
 * DLT – design