It’s almost a cheat to sneak this onto the Best of the Decade list considering that it came a mere three weeks into 2010, but what I love about this one now is that it clearly sets a template for the growth LC! would exhibit on each consecutive album over the course of the decade. If Hold On Now, Youngster and We are Beautiful, We Are Doomed felt like a band chaotically churning out a lifetime’s worth of songs up they had been living with up until that point, Romance is Boring felt like the band truly taking shape. It proved that they weren’t going to fizzle out and while their fanbase is a bit niche, that niche is as passionate and rabid as the best of ‘em. Considering the bands punk-meets-twee-pop roots, it was fair to wonder how these songs would age, and though they are evocative of one’s early twenties (read: they are evocative of my early, frequently misspent twenties), songs like “There are Listed Buildings,” “A Heat Rash in the Shape of the Show Me State,” and “In Media Res” are still tracks I would never skip if they came on shuffle. While this album still has a playful brattiness to it, Romance is Boring found the band slowing down the tempo and Gareth Campesinos leaning into his pervasive moroseness to surprsing effect. Tracks like “The Sea is a Good Place to Think of the Future” and “Who Fell Asleep In” found the band proving they were more than just a one trick pony, and looking at the records that followed--Hello Sadness, No Blues, Sick Scenes--you can see a throughline that starts right here.
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