Los Campesinos!

Formed at Cardiff University in 2006, despite none of the group's members actually being Welsh, six-piece Los Campesinos! are best known for being one of the more mainstream twee pop acts in recent years. After a demo was released in summer 2006, titled Hold On Now, Youngster, Wichita Recordings signed the then-septet in November, with the group's first single being the double A-side We Throw Parties, You Throw Knives / Don't Tell Me to Do the Math(s) from February 2007. This was followed up in June with the six-and-a-half minute madness that is You! Me! Dancing!, and non-album single The International Tweexcore Underground in October. 2008 was, and probably still is, the band's most productive year, with their breakthrough single Death To Los Campesinos! dropping the week before their album, Hold On Now, Youngster... (not to be confused with their demo, which has no ellipsis), released on 25th February. This was followed in May by the sub 2-minute funfest of My Year In Lists. The band then went and recorded ten tracks in Seattle in June, and released what LC! themselves consider to be a "mini-album" or even an "extended EP", but what most people consider to be their second album, entitled We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed, which when released in October, was only available as a CD/DVD set with tour footage. After recording their third album in June 2009, Romance Is Boring, it was announced that the group's female vocalist Aleksandra "Aleks" Berditchevskaia was to leave the band and be replaced by lead male vocalist/xylophonist Gareth Paisley's sister Kim. The first single from the new sessions, There Are Listed Buildings, was released in November, with the album dropping in January 2010, with the title track becoming a single in February. In June, the band's drummer, Ollie Briggs was asked to leave the band, and so far there has been no word from the group on who wll replace him. Death To Los Campesinos!'s video is below, accompanied by the downloads.