Vampire Weekend
Vampire Weekend

THE REVIEW

And if we could use beautiful music at the New Year's Eve party? Eh, maybe! Am I delirious? I haven't even started, and I'm already going off on a tangent? No, it's just that when you put on this disc and hear "Mansard Roof" with that bold organ, well... it's impossible not to get into the classic conga line, everyone happy and dazed, if you're not alone. It's absolutely impossible. Then you pause for a moment on the lyrics, and they're not as simple as you might suppose, so you start to give it a thought...   This record is the freshest thing I've heard in these times that have been very stingy with beautiful things to listen to: it practically blends African rhythms with indie sounds (with an art-pop aftertaste), creating an extremely enjoyable, and here's the beauty, airy, danceable, light, intense work. It's the kind of stuff that makes you want to grab your striped indie kid T-shirt!   It's an album entirely based on upbeat tracks, but not too loud, the kind that you can't just listen to without moving a part of your body to the beat, yet you can have it as background music. The use of guitars is not intrusive; the percussion, bass, and keyboards take center stage.   Almost all the tracks are good, with perhaps slightly too linear writing, but of excellent enjoyment: they go straight to the heart on the first listen and don't tire on successive ones, quite the opposite. For example, a track like "A-Punk," a sort of African ska, I don't know how many seconds it takes to make you jump up and down, whatever you're doing at the time.   I mentioned the African aftertaste of the tracks, which in "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" is absolutely evident: a percussive base that's as Afro as it gets with this shrill little indie voice, where do you find that these days?   The three tracks I've mentioned, placed at the start of the album, would be enough to give you a fair idea of what to expect, but our guys surprise us with a "I Stand Corrected" that's completely different from everything proposed until then and that, with those low frequencies, that layer of keyboards, the violins, spreads out a new wave mix that reminds me of the more pop Siouxsie And The Banshees.   It wouldn't be right not to mention also the particular "One (Blake's Got A New Face)", for which you'd run to put some brown makeup on your face to join in the chorus between the verses, for sure.   Not sure what the young folks eat over in New York, but these four youngsters have really hit the mark. Not a groundbreaking record, but a great debut album; if they don't lose their way, we'll definitely hear more (even better) from them.

 

PS: This review is dedicated to all the men and women whose actions have made spring the most depressing season for me. You making out while I'm left high and dry: you’ve really worn me out!!!