Back To The Future

This week's release of Guns n' Roses much ballyhooed, Chinese Democracy, will mark the end of a 15 year wait for fans of a band that has rarely shown that it cares one iota about anything outside Axl Roses's hyper-inflated ego.

Given the duration of their epic hiatus, it is certainly testament to the extraordinary durability of the mullet rockers that anyone actually still gives a hoot about them, in a business that has never paid homage to the notion that absence makes the heart grow fonder.

In the fickle world of music, such brand staying power is nothing short of remarkable, even if the album buckles under the weight of crippling expectations, but it certainly does beg the question: exactly how long should a band spend between albums?

It is a conundrum that faces new bands in particular, because, as the old adage goes, an act has its whole life to write their first album but only a matter of months or years to write its second.

The balance lies between taking enough time to write and record a decent second effort, without losing the momentum that has been built up with their first and, depending on their choice, the result can be enough to make or break a career.

Irish band, The Thrills, are a good case in point. Fearful that they would lose the momentum that saw their debut album make them the second highest selling foreign band in the US, the Dublin-act rushed back to the studio to knock out their second less than 12 months later, only to have critics slaughter it as a second-rate rush job, and even though they returned with an excellent third album last year, the circus had left town and The Thrills now teeter on the brink.

Most acts that breakthrough with their first album usually take around 18 months to write and record their second, a formula that seems to be the most successful generally speaking, but even this relatively short space of time was not always the norm.

Lest we forget, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones began their respective careers firing out albums at a phenomenal rate, with each group releasing a studio album every six months for the first three years of their career.

Looking back, the wonderful standard of music on those records - certainly in the case of the former - is nothing short of astonishing and such frequency and quality has been all but extinct for the past three or four decades.

However, with the recent release of their second album less than six months after their debut, and the attendant superb reviews, indie rockers, Los Campesinos! are showing that the art of making music at a frantic pace may not be a thing of the past.

It is perhaps apt that their name loosely translates as "the farmers" because rarely has a new act been capable of cultivating such a high-yield in such a short period of time.

Los Campesinos! are fond of claiming that they suffer from "guilt" such has been the rapidity of their ascent and the ease with which they now find themselves flirting with global stardom.

Formed in Cardiff in early 2006, none of the group are actually from Wales, but rather met while attending the local university and are in their own words: "Three sevenths Somerset, two sevenths London-way, one seventh Northern and a last seventh Russian."

In fact, the band's only tenuous links with Wales are a miner grandparent and the fact that another relative spent a night in Cardiff prison several decades before they were even born, although the band happily identify with the up-and-coming city, and are quick to credit the fact that they would never have come together without it.

Although their number is large by the standards of most bands, the initial group featured guitarist Neil, bassist Ellen and drummer Ollie, who - like their fellow band-mates - have followed a long rock 'n' roll tradition of adopting the name of their band as their surname.

Starting out, their only real sense of musical purpose was the fact that they wanted to leave behind the testosterone-driven, bloke-ish edge that was the hallmark of most British indie bands in the post-Oasis/ Libertines scene.

Instead, they looked to acts across the Atlantic, such as Deerhoof, Pavement, Sonic Youth and Broken Social Scene, who were more quirky and less driven by scenes or trends.

Within months, the band added four more to their number violinist Harriet, singer Aleks, keyboard player Gareth and guitarist Tom, whose skill as a tunesmith immediately elevated him to the position of chief songwriter, a position he still holds.

At first, the band played a mix of "long brooding instrumentals" and short punchy pop songs, though they quickly settled upon the latter when they noticed how easily they connected with the crowd and within weeks they had compiled enough original numbers to record what would become their Hold On Now, Youngster EP.

Although many pundits talk about meteoric rises, such tales usually stem from the pens of overzealous PR departments rather than any basis in reality, but, hyperbole aside, Los Campesinos! career trajectory has been nothing short of spectacular, since they decided to post the recordings for their initial EP on their MySpace site, and post a subsequent link to the tunes on influential UK music website, Drownedinsound.

Quite literally, within hours, the band was receiving the kind of traffic that most acts take years to accrue, as bloggers began to chatter excitedly about this new act in chatrooms and music sites all over the internet.

Labels were quick to join the fray, with a steady stream of them beating a path to the door of this pop act that seemed to come out of nowhere.

Some came with stylists, others with the line about making them stars, while more offered to take them anywhere of their choosing to be wined and dined (the band chose sandwich chain Subway) and all were dismissed in favor of indie label Wichita Records, who agreed to allow the band members time to finish their degrees, retain full musical control and because "they gave good hugs and left kisses at the end of their text messages."

Deal secured, they were soon out touring when their academic careers permitted and occasionally were forced to travel directly from exams to gigs, as - far from being insulted as most bands would be - they happily embraced the "twee rock" label that the media foisted upon them.

If you are getting the impression that Los Campesinos! are a little off-kilter then you are understanding another vital component of their makeup, and what makes them so alluring to so many people.

Driven by their youthful exuberance, articulate, bubbly personalities and a positively charming zaniness, they provide a refreshing alternative to the often morose nature that has blighted the indie world since Morrissey sang about soil falling over his head.

Los Campesinos! love who they are, where they are and what they are doing and make no bones about it, a characteristic that is personified by their front man and chief lyric writer, Gareth, whose poetic turns of phrase, affection for fun and occasional eccentricity is central to their identity.

His sense of frivolity should not be mistaken for meekness or blandness, however, as he happily engages other bands, dismissing the Enemy ("hugely macho") , the Kooks ("depressing") , Razorlight ("completely mundane") or the Pigeon Detectives, whose garish onstage wet t-shirt contests with impressionable young girls deeply offend his sensibilities and - in his view - are cheap attempts to compensate for a lack of talent.

A couple of standout singles were followed last February by their debut album, which shared its name with their debut EP, and was enough to make them a fixture at last summer's festivals.

Unusually, for a new UK band, the album also did surprisingly well in the US, perhaps assisted by its American leaning nature, and it was even enough to gain them a place at Lollapalooza.

Ever the modest souls, the band resisted their label's efforts to conduct an autograph signing session on the latter tour, fearing that they nobody would show up, only to walk into a packed room of fans.

Even more unusually, the band reentered the recording studio during the summer to cobble together a set of b-sides only to emerge with yet another album, We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed, which hit shelves last month.

Exceeding its successor on almost every level, it silenced all the doomsayers that openly questioned the wisdom of releasing something so soon after a successful debut.

Instead it has launched the band into the upper echelons of European indie music and secured them their most comprehensive tour of the US to date.

Despite, or perhaps because of such advances, they remain forward looking, talking recently of adding still more members in order to add strings and more percussion to their already heady sonic brew.

With so much success and so many contingency plans, it's a pretty safe bet to say they won't be needing those degrees for the foreseeable future.