Vampire Weekend - 'A-Punk'
Some artists, like Mika, believe that their music conjures up a magical animated world of wonderment, when it is, as I know you鈥檒l agree, the musical equivalent of genocide. Contrarily, inject Vampire Weekend into your ears and you鈥檒l be transported into a technicolour Wes Anderson world, colourful, kooky and literarified.
These things we know鈥 they鈥檙e New Yorkers, Ivy Leaguers, they write songs about grammar and privileged youngsters hanging out in Cape Cod and Dharamasala, they have a predilection for polo shirts, pastels and deck shoes and quote Ralph Lauren as an inspiration. In no way do they act, look, or sound like a collection of people going under the nom du rock 'Vampire Weekend' should*.
Combine this with their fusion of African pop and art-rock and you鈥檝e got something that on paper mightn鈥檛 sound too promising. If someone had told me that the bright new sound of 2008 would channel Paul Simon鈥檚 Graceland, I might have retired my ears for the year. And they've got their mellotron to play the keyboard refrain from 'Do They Know It's Christmas' too, the swine.
And yet, it works. The jangle of the guitars, the chirpy delivery, the afro-beat shuffle, the "Eh! Eh! Eh! Eh!" semi-chorus and the video which they describe as 鈥渏ittery Charlie Chaplin meets The Mighty Boosh鈥. It's a charm offensive, people. Four stars for the afro prepsters!
Download: Out now
CD Released: February 25th
(Nickie Latham)
*If you want to know where they DID get the name from, check out the silly film the band's singer Ezra Koenig made back in 2005. It's on the , even though they are perhaps a teeny bit snarky about what is clearly something they did for a laugh...
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