Los Campesinos! are back - hear ‘I Broke Up In Amarante’ from new album ‘Sick Scenes’

Rejoice - Los Campesinos! are back!

The Cardiff-by-way-of-loads-of-other-places seven-piece have announced their sixth album, ‘Sick Scenes’, along with its storming lead single ‘I Broke Up In Amarante’, an euphoric and verbose cut “about battling with bad mental health, trying to comfort and reason with yourself over something you can’t control,” in the words of frontman Gareth Paisey. “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”.

Recorded “during Euro 2016” in Fridao, Portugal (alright for some), the band explain that “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.”

Spin ‘I Broke Up In Amarante’ below ‘Sick Scenes” tracklisting, and read the DIY verdict here. Los Campesinos! are heading out on a pair of huge tours in the US and UK in the new year - dates for that are below the player.

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

Los Campesinos!’s new album ‘Sick Scenes’ is out 24th February via Wichita.