You Say Party! We Say Die!/Los Campesinos! @ Cabaret Voltaire, Edinburgh

An enticing live prospect, You Say Party! We Say Die! are a band that manage to generate a sense of occasion from the humblest of surroundings, an attitude exemplified tonight as frontwoman Becky Ninkovic takes to the stage in an electric blue cape. She immediately begins dancing balletically around the stage, and doesn’t let up for the entire set.

Whilst not wanting to detract from the rest of the band, she is clearly a consummate performer, and keen to get the audience involved, so much so that when she embarks on the first of her forays into the audience, the intensity almost proves too much for those immediately around her. They play material fairly evenly split between their two albums, 2005’s ‘Hit The Floor!’and this year’s ‘Lose All Time’, with ‘Downtown Mayors Goodnight, Alley Kids Rule!’ a highlight of their more recent output. However, it is their older songs such as opener ‘Cold Hands, Hot Bodies!’ and especially closer ‘The Gap’ that best showcase their punk-pop aesthetic. And it’s during ‘The Gap’ that the audience finally let rip, with Ninkovic dancing in the midst of us.

Cardiff-based Los Campesinos! are a similarly fun prospect. With seven members swapping instruments, their sound is a complex one. Stylistically, they combine the cheery poppiness of The Maccabees with a punkier sensibility, illustrated on current single �International Tweexcore Underground’. They’re also not afraid of dabbling in a little guitar-driven post-rockery, as on ‘Sweet Dreams’. Their infectious sense of fun extends to their between-song banter about the ghost tours they are planning on going on, and to thank us for being there, as without us things would be ‘a lot less fun, in fact, just like soundcheck. Which is not much fun, in fact it’s really boring.’ One charge which cannot be levelled at Los Campesinos!

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