The Wake

Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend

In my pursuit of the new Xiu Xiu album, I stumbled upon another gem released in the same week.
Vampire Weekend’s official full-length debut has taken the spotlight in a big way over the past two weeks. Their eponymous album represents a textbook example of Internet hype controlling a band’s fortunes.

Vampire Weekend mixes a poppy, new-wave sound with West African influences, and features heavy
keyboards and rhythmic instrumentation. Pitchfork Media, the (outgoing?) Official Soviet Opinion of the
“indie” community, has praised the work highly with an 8.8 rating. However, hype for hype’s sake is a
double-edged sword, and the band has fallen from the graces of more than a few blogs after its initial two weeks. The sheer pop-ness of the work is often cited as grating. Music bloggers come in different varieties, and many don’t appreciate being taken on a magical hypery tour any more than I do.

All of that said, Vampire Weekend is holding on as second most-blogged on the Hype Machine, second only to Hot Chip (established enough to have their own zealous followers, among other things). Before I heard this album, I would never have imagined finding African music that featured harpsichords in its production. Vampire Weekend is lyrically dense and often redundant, perhaps owing to the band’s Ivy League origins at Columbia University. They squeeze plenty of verbosity into their 34-minute allotment, which is unusually concise and a definite mark in favor of the band. Songs are short, sweet, and don’t mess around. If you’re looking for a quick, preppy fix for African new-wave you’ve found your scene. It’s definitely worth listening to, if only as ammunition to shout down your local hipster jerk. Songs of note: “M79″, “A-Punk”, and “Mansard Roof,” which was released as a single last fall.