As evidenced by both their music and exclamatory band name, the seven members of Cardiff, Wales’ Los Campesinos! are excitable boys and girls. The group’s third album, Romance Is Boring (Arts & Crafts), is an energetic, all-hands-on-deck dash through the pantheon of sharp indie pop and sloppy post-punk, gathering steam from Bright Eyes’ sense of emotional catharsis and Art Brut’s wry take on modern love. Try to gather all the influences brought to bear on Romance Is Boring by LC!’s seven-member army, however, and we’d be here all day. MAGNET spoke to songwriter Tom Campesinos! and guitarist Neil Campesinos!—all members (Tom, Neil, Ellen, Gareth, Harriet, Ollie and Kim) have taken the band’s surname—about the new album. Los Campesinos! will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our Q&A with them.
Ollie: We’ve always had the Sunday Observer in my family’s house. As well as reading the sport, I always read Nigel Slater‘s food column. He’s been writing it for about 20 years now. He has several books, which are great reads. He is so enthusiastic about food. How he writes is as if he was writing a novel. His writing is so descriptive, and it just makes you salivate when reading it. His cooking is always simple but so effective that if you cook it, it always come out how it should and is really tasty. In my opinion, he is the best food writer in the U.K. I wish that when I write my food reviews that I can write like him. His autobiography, Toast, has done the rounds of the band. Everyone should read it, even if you are a fussy eater. Video after the jump.
MAGNET is proud to premiere the first single from 
MAGNET’s Pennsylvania/California-based odd couple, editor/publisher Eric T. Miller and contributing editor Jud Cost, probably go to see more movies than any non-critic you know. Between the two of them, they must have a somewhat comprehensive history of film locked behind their bloodshot eyes, with Miller’s field of expertise covering the past 20 years and Cost’s in everything before that. Who better, on the morning of the Oscar nominations, to sort the wheat from the other whole grains when it comes to the best films of 2009? And speaking of the Oscars, check out Miller’s 
Ellen: When it comes to art, I am ignorant. I have an amazing ability to forget the names, movements and styles of 80 percent of the artwork I see, even if I rather admire it. It is a non-transferrable skill, and it does not get me far in life. However, it does mean the art pieces I do remember are all the more impressive. They must have some kind of je ne sais quoi to them for the indentation to remain in my psyche.