Romance Is Boring

Romance Is Boring is the third studio album by Welsh indie pop band Los Campesinos!, released on 26 January 2010 via Wichita and Arts & Crafts. Produced by John Goodmanson, the album's maximalist production, unconventional structure and particularly demoralising themes marked a departure from the band's previous twee pop sound.

Following the release of their first two studio albums in 2008, Los Campesinos! began an extensive touring circuit across North America as their following grew. They recorded Romance Is Boring in Connecticut and Seattle in early 2009, experimenting with brass instruments for the first time to create a complex soundscape. Frontman Gareth Paisey describes the album as lyrically focusing on "the death and decay of the human body, sex, lost love, mental breakdown, football and, ultimately, that there probably isn’t a light at the end of the tunnel".

Romance Is Boring was preceded by the promotional singles "The Sea Is a Good Place to Think of the Future" in September 2009, and "There Are Listed Buildings" in November. Upon release in January 2010, the record peaked at number 92 on the UK Albums Chart and received widespread critical acclaim, appearing on the annual lists of music publications including DIY and The Line of Best Fit. Four of its tracks would later be reworked on the band's All's Well That Ends EP (2010). Romance Is Boring remains one of the most highly regarded albums in the band's catalogue.

Background
Los Campesinos! released both their first studio albums, Hold on Now, Youngster... and We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed, in 2008, and "started amassing a devout fanbase". In 2009, they performed a 21-show tour across North America alongside punk band Titus Adronicus, and began to play at bigger venues including at the music festivals Lollapalooza and Coachella in the same year.

After recording of Romance Is Boring had finished, founding keyboardist Aleksandra Berditchevskaia announced she would be amicably leaving the band in August 2009 to continue her studies. She was replaced by Kim Paisey, the sister of frontman Gareth, in September.

Music and production
Romance Is Boring was produced by John Goodmanson, who previously worked with the band on We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed. The album was recorded in the United States from January to June 2009 in two studios: Carriage House in Stamford, Connecticut, and Two Sticks Audio in Seattle, Washington. It was mixed at Monnow Valley in Rockfield, Wales.

Lead guitarist Tom Bromley said the creative process for Romance Is Boring would often begin with him recording a demo and sending it to the six other members– specifically, frontman Gareth Paisey to create vocal ideas, and violinist Harriet Coleman to tinker with string arrangements. It is the first album by Los Campesinos! to feature brass instruments.

Romance Is Boring showcases a significant expansion in the band's sound compared to their previous releases. A maximalist album, it is characterised by "densely-knotted and gnashing layers of instrumentation". It also remains their longest work, with the track listing split into three distinctive acts. Going into production, Gareth Paisey said it was the first time the band had attempted to create a cohesive, full album with running musical and lyrical themes.

Jordan Sargent of PopMatters said the album "represents how sonic exploration can actually go right". Writing for NME, Lisa Wright said the album is "incredibly structurally cohesive" and "blows anything they’ve previously released out of the water in terms of textural intricacy, technical prowess and general experimentation". Rob Hakimian of The Line of Best Fit continued, that despite the "when the verses are in-your-face and unhospitable, the songs glide into beautifully anthemic choruses, where the melodies shine clear and bright".

When speaking of his influences for the album, Bromley cited Pavement, Guided by Voices, Blur and Modest Mouse. The album features guest appearances from Jamie Stewart of Xiu Xiu, Zac Pennington of Parenthetical Girls, and Jherek Bischoff of the Dead Science.

Lyricism
When writing Romance Is Boring, Paisey began by writing in prose before turning his words into songs. He wrote several songs, like the title track, at the last minute while the band was recording. The album's central themes include death, football, beer and sex. While the band's first two records dabbled with these concepts, Paisey reflected: "it’s the sex that really stands out from this collection of songs."

As the narrator of each song, Paisey represents himself as an insecure, sexually frustrated and bitter man. Writing for PopMatters, Evan Sawdey said that tracks occasionally detail "the build-up and deflation of one man’s fragile ego". In interviews, Paisey admitted the joke was always on himself: "For the most part I’ve been the butt of the joke. I can’t think of many examples where it’s been the person that I’ve been singing about that has come out of the situation looking worse than me."

The band cite author BS Johnson as one of their influences: the title of "Too Many Flesh Suppers", and lyrics from "Coda: A Burn Scar in the Shape of the Sooner State" and the title track are taken from a title of a poem, and from lines from his poem See the Old Lady Decently and novel Trawl (then Paisley's favourite novel) respectively.

Release and promotion
A promotional single for the album, "The Sea Is a Good Place to Think of the Future", was released on 9 September 2009. A "slow-building, atmospherically-arranged epic about death", the track marked a sonic departure from their previous work. It was named a Best New Track on Pitchfork, with critic Ryan Dombal calling the song "the work of a band, not a bunch of enthusiastic devotees". The lead single, "There Are Listed Buildings", was issued on 2 November 2009, when it was announced the band's third studio album, Romance Is Boring, would release on 1 February 2010. Its cover art was designed by Cari Ann Wayman. Three months before its official release, in December, the full album was leaked online. Paisey wrote a statement on the band's blog talking of his disappointment and anger at the fact, saying: "It really feels like ripping something out of my chest".

The album's title track was released as a 7" single on 15 February 2010. It was backed with "Too Many Flesh Suppers", an unreleased song Paisey described as "the biggest departure from anything [the band had] done before" and the "darkest thing [they had] ever recorded, sonically and lyrically." The B-side was later released as a free download on the band's blog on 30 November 2010.

From April 2010, the band embarked on a North American tour supporting the album. The following month, they played at several festivals across the United Kingdom, before performing a second circuit across the United States in October. While on tour, Paisey suffered from a mild concussion and sprained wrist after he leaped from the stage at the Summer Sundae.

In July 2010, the band released All's Well That Ends, an extended play featuring reworked, acoustic versions of four songs from Romance Is Boring.

2020 reissue
In February 2020, to celebrate the tenth anniversary of Romance Is Boring, Los Campesinos! digitally released a remastered edition of the album featuring "Too Many Flesh Suppers" as a bonus track. The band also released an 86-page zine detailing the album's writing, recording and release. Further, the band played two shows over Valentine's Day at the Islington Assembly Hall in London, where they performed the entire album in full.

Critical reception
The album debuted to widespread acclaim. According to Metacritic, the album has an average score of 75 based on the scores from 28 mainstream reviewers.

Many music outlets claimed Romance Is Boring was the band's best album, or one that was a major improvement compared to their previous work. Calling it "an absolutely astounding album", Gareth O'Malley for DIY said it stands as "a rare example of a band that have improved with each release." Tony Heywood of London magazine MusicOMH concluded "Romance Is Boring is a triumph, a glistening, breathless success", writing the band were "at the peak of their considerable powers". Matt Latham for Set The Tape called the album "the crowning piece of their discography" and a "masterpiece of songwriting and rewarding repeated listens".

Writing for Pitchfork, Paul Thompson praised Paisey's relatable and honest lyricism, and called it a matured release from the band. He particularly commended the album's production which displays sonic experimentation without cluttering the mix. Jordan Sargent of PopMatters concluded that "Los Campesinos! have, in short time, found their sound."

Other reviews were less positive, like British music magazine Uncut writing that "the band have beefed up their sound, at the expense of their spindly charm." Tim Sendra of AllMusic gave Romance Is Boring a scathing review, calling it an "over-cooked, under-performing album that ultimately falls short of their first two efforts," calling Paisey's songwriting poor and his voice "annoying more often than charming".

Legacy
For the ten year anniversary of Romance Is Boring in 2020, several publications including The Line of Best Fit and PopMatters published retrospectives on the album. Writing for Getintothis, Matthew Eland claimed it remained "their most accomplished record" a decade on, and called the track "I Just Sighed. I Just Sighed, Just So You Know" the group's best song. On the remaster, Sawdey concluded: "It’s a remarkable achievement ... and it still stings a decade down the line". Hakimian wrote that the record "set a path for what was to come in their music in the following years" – Paisey agreed, claiming that he finds Sick Scenes (2017) to be more similar to their 2010 output compared to their debut, Hold on Now, Youngster... (2008). In 2020, Vulture described the album as the band's "most divisive".

In 2020, Joe Goggins for The Skinny wrote that Romance Is Boring was a "unsung cornerstone of the emo revival" and a crucial contribution to the genre, citing its raw lyricism underrated beneath "oblique football references and the Heatonesque colloquialisms".

Accolades
Romance Is Boring was featured several times in various music publications' year-end lists. DIY placed the album at number 15 in their annual compilation, and the publication's readers voted it in at number eight in a separate list. Meanwhile, NME called Romance Is Boring one of 2010's most underrated albums. It also featured in the lists of Consequence of Sound, Drowned in Sound and The Line of Best Fit.

Personnel
Credits are reflective of liner notes.

Musicians


 * Los Campesinos!, specifically:
 * Tom Bromley – music, string arrangements
 * Gareth Paisey – writing
 * Aleksandra Berditchevskaia – writing (tracks 4, 11)
 * Harriet Coleman – string arrangements
 * Kim Paisey – shruti box, piccolo
 * Zac Pennington – vocals
 * Jamie Stewart – vocals
 * Eric Corson – vocals
 * Jherek Bischoff – vocals, trombone, double bass
 * Izaak Mills – saxophone, flute
 * Samantha Boshnack – trumpet, flugel horn

Additional personnel


 * John Goodmanson – recording, mixing, producer
 * Eric Corson – engineering
 * Michael Lerner – engineering
 * Jackson Long – engineering
 * Tom Manning – assistant
 * Guy Davie – mastering
 * Anna Wayman – cover images