Vampire Weekend - s/t

As folklore observes, vampires are monstrous creatures blessed with eternal life. Save an Achilles heal or two, they’re formidable in their enduring, seductive appeal. The subject of many literary concerns, they’re written into history and not about to disappear any time soon. As a metaphor, it doesn’t seem quite fitting of Vampire Weekend’s hype-driven ascendancy, but it’s somewhat illustrative of their feeding off unexpected sources.

Long before the release of this, their eponymous debut album, blogs, forums and P2Ps were awash with sticky mouthed praise for the four New Yorkers. In need of context, the snowballing hyperbole made much of their Ivy League roots, stillborn in references to academic conventions, ladies of Cambridge and allusions to a colonial past existent only in library tomes. Literate and eloquent, these boys had smarts with the World Music chops to match. The Graceland it’s more than ok to admit liking, if you like. Replete in deck shoes and knotted sweaters, they’re an uptown Strokes with an OC edge and in theory, almost too perfect. The tricky time signatures and “kwassa kwassa” aesthetics put the icing on the cake, proving the band a bloggers wet dream and predicatbly the name to drop in the last six months. It’s somewhat inevitable that claims of the ‘next big thing’ were soon to crop up via all the usual suspects. Ones To Watch, Pitchfork backing and the toast of hipster banter, these boys have it made.

So far so normal, so what? Just as similar ‘Internet sensations’ Black Kids and Los Campesinos! will no doubt experience, the result is that a hefty proportion of the songs that comprise Vampire Weekend have been available to download for some time. The initial buzz resulted from the circulation of a CD-R containing three of these songs and I’d already heard at least four more of the eleven strong tracklisting without having searched for them too comprehensively. Before the band are even able to release their first record, the weight of expectation swings ominously above their heads like the Sword of Damocles or indeed, a stake through the chest. And more importantly, we’re bored of the songs before they’re available to purchase. And it’s a difficult subject to broach when you’re writing about a new record already six months out of date to those likely to care enough to read this. Digital media harnesses a capricious and biting culture of consumption and for what it’s worth, not one that Vampire Weekend deserve to be caught up in.

The references to Paul Simon and The Strokes are somewhat logical, given the conversational vocals and laidback charm. But, the sheer playfulness and literate impulses here appear more in step with those other voracious New York cannibals, Talking Heads. Ezra Koenig delivers couplets straight out of 1977, his concerns teenage and wide eyed, but never completely expected. When Koenig jubilantly intones “I climbed to Dharamsala too, I did/I met the highest lama/His accent sounded fine” on “Oxford Comma” there’s the same smart idiosyncrasies at work that made David Byrne a preppy pin up. Rather beautifully though, it’s not all studied cool and well-travelled name dropping. Koenig twists humour with pathos rather adeptly, as on “A-Punk” conjuring the image of a wayward socialite jewel: “Johanna drove slowly into the city/ The Hudson River all filled with snow/ She spied the ring on his honour's finger/Oh-oh-oh”.

Acknowledging Koenig’s input is of course justified. As the mouthpiece of the band, he completes the collegiate aesthetic, providing a way in, adding a little heart to the imperialistic mish mash of assimilated World Music. It’s an obvious tendency to attribute a band a creative figurehead, but here that would negate the charms of a never less than sprightly band. In fact, even that does the remaining three members a disservice, belying their adroit intuitions and off-kilter hooks. There’s a real magpie tendency on display throughout, with guitars crisp like winter tap water, married to freewheeling drum fills and afro-beat mis-steps.

Whereas Koenig recalls Talking Heads debut in his lyrical verbosity, the band make more like Speaking in Tongues, if not with quite the same dance-ability. That such a comparison bridges a gap between arguably the finest run of five albums ever is no slight achievement. But, too much has been made of the World Music shtick. Alt.rock, indie, whatever you want to call it, is no longer a parochial affair thanks to the Internet and it’s somewhat inevitable that bands like Vampire Weekend would emerge with a wider-spread sonic palette. It’s a logical progression for sure and not one without its slightly questionable antecedents, but there’s also a clear debt here to contemporaries like The Shins, and on the whirring keyboards of “I Stand Corrected” in particular, Belle and Sebastian circa Tigermilk. Indeed, it’s the global a-go-go keyboards of Rostam Batmanglij that lend the band a subtle flair, as on the rather regal “M79”; only partially removed from the theme tune to the Antiques Roadshow, and the crystalline hand-jive of “Walcott”.

That I’ve been privy to the charms of the latter for several months now, but still find myself drawn to it again and again reveals enough about Vampire Weekend to suggest they can transcend the millstone of the ‘another Internet sensation’ tagline. The album isn’t perfect, as the mid-album slump of “Bryn” and “One” attest. But really, it’s a debut, it’s not meant to be flawless. I’d find it rather sinister if it was, coming on strong like an indie Stepford Wives. But ultimately, with expectations high and attention spans already waning, Vampire Weekend proves the ultimate riposte to the haters and cynics. Playful, addictive and utterly memorable, 2008 is theirs for the taking. While they may not quite be around forever like their namesakes, it’ll take more than a meekly waved cross and the stench of garlic to ward off these dark knights off.