Vampire Weekend - VampireWeekend

Mon 4th Feb, 2008 in Music Reviews

In many ways, Vampire Weekend could be the quintessential 2008 American college band. That is, if the general population grew up listening to Paul Simon’s Graceland, rather than, say, Nirvana’s Nevermind. Early promo photos showed the recent grads fresh faced and clad in ivy-league attire, spread out in messy dorm rooms and in classrooms with blackboards as backdrops. Their songs touch on discussions about grammar and dorm room make outs. However if you look past the polo shirts and cardigans, the self-titled debut album for Vampire Weekend reveals a superbly arranged collection of pop songs finding inspiration in unusual places.

The band, who all met at Columbia University in New York, intertwine the jagged guitar stabs of modern day indie rock with the African styled rhythms usually found in the deserted world music section of record stores. Catchy choruses, foot-stomping beats, and clever hooks are at every turn, owning the rare quality of being an instantly likeable album that still gets better on repeated listens. The tracks have a Spoon-like efficiency to them; all excess has been trimmed leaving a collection of songs that are as energetic as they are minimalist.

While reflecting the band’s mixed sound of old and new, frontman Ezra Koenig’s lyrics drift from tales of campus life to a more outward worldly view; dropping obscure and exotic location names at the drop of the hat. Standout track Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa, which references a dance rhythm originating in Congo, betrays it’s obscure title and is in essence a pop song about the prospect of female company; “Is your bed made?... Do you want to? Like you know I do” sings Koenig, ever so briefly losing his cool before later inexplicably mentioning Peter Gabriel, seemingly out of nowhere.

With the sparse production working in the band’s favour, the songs are clever, yet unpretentious. They already appear to have mastered the art of blending old with new resulting in a refreshing and unique sound. During some parts listeners will be reminded of The Strokes, or Franz Ferdinand, and then suddenly will be taken back to early high school music classes when world music was on the curriculum – often within the same song. The strings on Walcott recalls Eleanor Rigby, while the staccato beats of Campus lead into an upbeat chorus which would tempt the hips of even the most stoic of wallflowers.

On initial listens, early fans of the band may find the album predictably frontloaded, as the opening four tracks have all been available on the band’s Myspace for the past few months as they’ve rode the wave of internet hype. However it barely takes a second listen to realise there isn’t a weak song present, and clocking in at just over 30 minutes the album flies by long before you’ve had time to look up what the Khyber Pass is on Wikipedia (to save your time, it’s a mountain connecting Pakistan and Afghanistan).

Drifting somewhere between a trademark and a staple, tom-tom based breakdowns are present in almost every track, at times making the album appear almost formulaic. However this is only a minor complaint on an otherwise stellar debut that undoubtedly will be considered among the years best. On the strength of this album, 2008 really should be Vampire Weekend’s year. With a charismatic frontman, and a talented band with great songs and the chops to match, it’s not unreasonable to imagine Vampire Weekend reaching the lofty heights of another group of young upstarts such as the Arctic Monkeys. However the fact they call the other side of the Atlantic home has seemingly already played a part in slowing down the Vampire Weekend juggernaut. Due to the ADD-riddled music scene of New York City they have long experienced the all too familiar cycle of being hyped on blogs, closely followed by the inevitable backlash. All before they even had a chance to release their first album. Furthermore, without the backing of a hype machine, like the UK’s NME for instance, they may not in fact rule the world, but then again maybe that’s not such a bad thing after all.