os Campesinos! are what indie kids used to dance about in their bedrooms to about 5 years ago and, like their fans, they have grown up with new album Hello Sadness. The high-pitched shouty indiepoppers’ voices have well and truly broken.

It all kicks off with By Your Hand – gosh the intro to this makes serious nods to Vampire Weekend for a second or two and then perhaps Beach House before the LC! mark is made, a great first track, lyrically as fun as they’ve ever been, though slightly at risk of sounding a bit generic American teen movie with references to rental tuxes and the like. Saved with its layers of vocals and an instrumentally satisfying array of percussion to excite the ears. It does feel like lead singer Gareth Campesinos! is allowing a little more angst to shine through; fading subtly away are the vocals akin to the likes of Jamie T and on the whole, so is the mischievous noisemaking that was once compared to the intelligent yet twee Architecture in Helsinki.

Title track and single Hello Sadness is a fast-paced typically danceable track with gorgeously placed violin riffs, but I am a little embarrassed by the odd lyric, references to navels and saliva trails. Lyrics aside they’ve done good and this is a feel-good track and the arcing, complex climax to the song is executed perfectly before slowly, simply finishing up with Gareth singing about heartbreak in the only way he can, wry in tone and somewhat cheerfully.

On tracks like Life is a Long Time, The Black Bird, The Light Slope and Light Leaves, Dark Sees Pt II there is instead a shade of Conor Oberst-style introspection, spitting lyrics out in an emotionally unhinged manner which, interspersed with the interjections of the swooping melodies of Aleksandra Campesinos!, seems to suit the band fairly well. Life is a Long Time is a personal favourite, rollicking in nature and about as sage and wise as the band have proven themselves so far, addressing relationship troubles and life itself in an honest way which bears a glimmer hope for all the angst-ridden and bereft listeners out there. Every Defeat a Divorce is another fantastic track with several references to the football fan in Gareth along with learning some important lessons about losing and learning.

While certain moments of Hello Sadness seem almost unrecognisable from their early stuff, they have enough jaunty riffs and percussive twists and turns to not be lost in sadness altogether, reminding us of their heady youthful days of Sticking Fingers Into Sockets. I must admit to not really knowing what to do with them when its not 2am after several double vodkas and its not You! Me! Dancing! but it seems that they have finally come of age after attempts to do so on 2009’s Romance is Boring and I have to say this has grown on me tremendously since I first heard it.