Vampire Weekend - Modern Vampires Of The City

Source: Vampire Weekend

And so they return! With much rejoicing from my corner, because I love Vampire Weekend. No point in beating around the bush. This new album bears much more resemblance to Contra, featuring more pop-y sounds rather than their self-titled first album, which was more Paul Simon with a 2008 twist. However, there may be a resemblance to the last album, but this one is by no means along the same vein. It's much darker, much more introspective, as though they sat down having a good old bitch session about all the shit that happened to them in the three years since Contra was released. Whatever they did, it worked because this is genuinely their best album yet. It's gaining popularity, having debuted at Number 1 in the charts and sold 134,000 copies and counting. The proof is in the pudding.

The pace is much slower than their previous two albums, although they deliver the dancing goods in Diane Young. The official stream of the video before the album's release caused a fair amount of controversy; it pictured two burning 900-series Saabs as the infectious track played over the top of the visual - to anyone confused by this, the first lyric is "you torched a Saab like a pile of leaves". They received a huge amount of criticism from loving Saab owners; one Jalopnik article carried the headline "Vampire Weekend Are a Bunch of Dicks". All this for burning a couple of old, disused cars with, as frontman Ezra Koenig acknowledged in an interview with Spinner, "a lot of electrical problems".

The song, as a brilliant combination of rock and the pop melodies of previous tracks like Giving Up The Gun, is utterly deserving of the debate surrounding the ethics of its video. All good music should generate some sort of controversy, or you're doing something wrong. They experiment properly with vocal effects for the first time in the bridge, and the pitch fluctuations add that unmistakable Vampire Weekend touch. Not that it's their typical sound, but it exhibits their flair at exploring musical mediums and how to adapt them to their advantage.

The content of the songs has become much more thoughtful and grown-up, especially in the way that they approach their own material; a good example of this is Hudson. It references the recent economic crisis in Europe, saying "we watched the Germans play the Greeks". Their ability to make heavy topics such as these seem poetic and lyrical is a testament to their abilities. It's also the first song that they've ever written in a minor key. This in itself is a milestone, as it shows that Vampire Weekend aren't just there for the good times, they're there when you need a hug from Ezra Koenig's voice. Something we all need at one time or another.

Source: Huffington Post

Modern Vampires Of The City seems to be a significant move away from their image as posh boys living in a bubble of privilege and Lacoste shirts. This is done in very subtle ways, such as mispronouncing "we worshipped you" to make it "we worshopped you" in Worship You. They open with a slightly slower song, Obvious Bicycle, contrasting the other albums which opened with catchier, dancier tunes like Mansard Roof and Horchata. As I said before, the pace is much slower, but the ebbs and flows of the different songs allows for a much more mature and thoughtful side of Vampire Weekend to come through. They've always been very intellectual in their approach to songs (one particularly good example is Oxford Comma) but here it's much more exposed, much more open. Ya Hey's biblical imagery and the failures of  America's capitalist attitude provides a bittersweet outlook on modern life.

Not only have Vampire Weekend themselves changed, but the music has changed with them. The use of a drum machine as well as a live drum kit makes Chris Tomson's drumming so much more interesting to listen to and adds texture and feel to the songs. The decision to bring in Ariel Rechtshaid as co-producer with band member Rotsam Batmanglij has benefited them hugely; the change has allowed Vampire Weekend to grow more as artists.

I can't sing their praises enough. This album is brilliant. They are brilliant. And if you don't think so after listening to this album, you don't deserve to own it.

Rating: 10/10

Recommended Tracks:
Unbelievers
Step
Everlasting Arms