BY JUD COST

Los Campesinos!, an army of eight with enough raw energy for an entire company of royal marines, breezed into San Francisco as soon as the Icelandic behemoth subsided sufficiently to allow air travel to the States from their native Great Britain. There was a small mob of devotees at the half-full Regency Ballroom eager to salute the infectious octet's every move. And there were plenty of gyrations to go around, as the oddly named combo, based in Cardiff, Wales, at times resembled a performance art video about attention deficit hyperactive disorder. No steaming coffee urns from Starbucks or Peet's necessary in the dressing room, thanks all the same.

Unfortunately, the task of getting a proper balance for the jittery whirlwind of Los Campesinos! proved too much for the Regency's sound man. Admittedly, with two sets of drums, a pair of guitars, violin, bass, keyboards and up to four vocalists working hard on every song it must be tough to keep all the snakes in the same basket. Even the stage announcements of garrulous frontman Gareth Campesinos (everyone in the band follows the Ramones' tradition of using the band moniker as a surname) were barely decipherable. But this house is notorious for bad sound. At one show by the National a few years back all you could hear was the bass and kick-drum, no matter where you stood. Everything else was swallowed up by the magnificent rafters of this grand old hall.

Even with tonight's sonic handicap, however, it was fairly easy to mentally fill in the missing parts if you'd experienced Los Campesinos' three superb albums-Hold On Now, Youngster, We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed and, most recently, Romance Is Boring (all on Arts & Crafts). Even though none of the band members appears to be Welsh, they are the most recent in a short list of excellent rock bands from Wales that includes Badfinger, Man, the Alarm, Manic Street Preachers, Super Furry Animals and Gorky's Zygotic Mynci.

As expected from the country known as "the land of song" (and home of pop warblers Tom Jones and Shirley Bassey), Los Campesinos! puts a premium on intricate vocal arrangements. Their frantic instrumental sound has the nervous facial tic and crazy rhythms of New Jersey new wavers the Feelies as well as the bounding exuberance of Kiwi pop-punk legends the Clean and Split Enz. With such a pedigree (and more cooperation from the sound booth) you got the feeling as they began to wind things up with signature song "You! Me! Dancing!" that Los Campesinos! can't miss.

[Photo Credit: Jon Bergman]