Los Campesinos! (note the exclamation point) aren’t for everyone. Those allergic to tweeness, glockenspiels, or singers shouting breathlessly while laughing should beware. Yet it’s hard not to be caught up in the frey with seven Welsh musicians crowding the Mercury Lounge stage, performing as if it’s the greatest show of their lives, on a Friday night.

The band’s EP, released in the U.S. this summer, has obviously caught on with the kids because the venue was packed with bouncing fans (and it wasn’t only the Brits in the audience who succumbed). The EP’s hits, like “Don’t Tell Me To Do the Math(s)”, “We Throw Parties, You Throw Knives” and “You! Me! Dancing!”, prove the Los Camps can write some magical, quirky pop tunes. When performed live, these songs take on an anarchic, punk glee club form, messy and almost falling apart at the seams until the anthemic choruses kick in to remind you why you loved the tunes in the first place.

Singer/glock-player, keyboardist Gareth Campesinos has the floppy, hair-in-the-eyes innocence of a Morrissey/Robert Smith-spewing collegiate, using awkward pauses between songs for sweet, self-deprecating banter like, “You’re very nice. We like you” or to warn that the next song might not work since the band never seems to “play it right.” Though this kind of talk comes off as a charming diversion to some, or as sufferingly cute to others, when the band kicks in, most of us are quickly pulled back in by the sheer joy of the band’s songs. Los Camps bring with them all the warm sincerity of a neighborly, Cardiff pub band (who happens to have just as much appeal at sprawling events like the Glastonbury Fest).–MVW/photo by Tear-n Tan