And not a one of these guys is named Jason, but let’s pretend…
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[5.33]
Katherine St Asaph: “You know how some couples have get-out-of-jail-free cards where you’re OK to hypothetically hook up with whichever celebrity? Society should have that concept except for punching people in the face. And one of mine would be Ezra from Vampire Weekend.” — me, on Gchat, grousing about these fucks before hearing the album. Given this, the prospect of Ezra and co. invoking the Lumineers or Outkast (or DragonForce! …nah) for the wiseass portion of their twentysomething existential crisis was not particularly compelling. And lo and behold, Ezra and co. bellyaching about Babylon like they just heard a Snoop Lion song are not particularly compelling — but either the frustrating or relieving thing about Vampire Weekend is they’re one of those bands where the music really does outweigh the annoyance. Here, it’s done with some pretty traditional tools — obligatory choirs seldom sound so celestial.
[6]
Alfred Soto: It’s about the Lord God, apparently — Yahweh. I award Ezra Koenig no bonus points for lyrical ambition because we knew he was a smart fucker already, as at least nine other, better tracks on Modern Vampires of the City prove. Horrid chipmunk-processed title hook aside, the track sounds delicious: thick dub bass, synthesized textures that shift depending on Koenig’s register, Chris Tomson’s drums getting the right sound from his martial rhythms. But this ain’t no single.
[7]
Mallory O’Donnell: I was gonna say Paul Simon produced by the Buggles but Trevor Horn’s tools are more pro than these. Still, at least now they’re allowed to see other bands.
[4]
Anthony Easton: It feels weird to have white boy prepsters who had previously copied Byrne copying west Africa, into working some genuinely lyrical sophistication, using Rasta argot to braid the personal and political. It actually sounds curious and beautiful and weirdly evades the racism.
[7]
Patrick St. Michel: Another Vampire Weekend song that will keep the believers Tweeting praises and those who loathe these guys side-eyeing the others…while us in the middle sit here and wonder why these dudes can stop flexing those college degrees and just write more straight-up pop songs for a change. Oh, wait hold on, this song actually contains one of the most annoying sounds to ever appear in a Vampire Weekend song, those pitch-shifted coos. Cool, a Vampire Weekend song I can hate because it actually grates.
[2]
Brad Shoup: An apostrophe to the Almighty that isn’t XTC’s “Dear God”? I’m in. The Vamps try to stretch one (great) conceit past a dropout where the gutpunch goes, but they already did their damage. Koenig consoles an unknowable God; how’s that for the hook? Jehovah isn’t treated as such, not quite: he’s labelled a saint (quite the demotion), called out on his mistakes, tucked into bed by a parent who’s headed to the corner store for cigarettes. The refrain packs what I recognize as truth: He is and it is what they are. Marvel or move on. The rest is men notoriously grappling with themselves, mastering hooks and production touches (the stomp is a leaner “Take a Walk,” the choral bits are terrifically ambiguous, the baroque piano runs their fussy image up the flagpole) as rapidly as they discard the comforts of knowledge. To explain one line, RapGenius superuser Maureen Miller puts a Richard Hofstadter tome in the blender. Had Koenig & co. really exposed themselves to God’s back, she might have had to burn her place down.
[8]
Jer Fairall: Charges of glibness won’t fly here: Koenig’s vocal is graceful enough that even if you don’t choose to follow along with the ponderous spiritual ramble of the lyric, his delivery brings with it enough gravity that it all feels sincere (even the invocations of Desmond Dekker and the Stones, a religion I do understand, feel reverential rather than back-pattingly clever). Charges of obnoxiousness still might, though: as many lovely notes as this hits in its languid five-minute sprawl, the African choral chant chiefly among them, someone here still thought that including those horribly grating chipmunk vocals on the chorus was a good idea.
[6]
Ian Mathers: If anything, this makes “Step” sound even better; there is absolutely no reason this one needs to be five minutes long, and for maybe the first time there’s not even a single line I appreciated in any sense. There’s still some basic melodic nous here, but that’s not going to get me coming back.
[3]
Jonathan Bogart: I fully admit to never having given these guys a chance. Maybe two, five, ten years from now I’ll be rooting through some old hard drive, come across an mp3, have tears spring to my eyes from the first notes, and become a belieVWer. But for now it’s still just another collection of signifiers — yelpy vocals, funkless rhythm, spindly instrumentation, fussily precious production details, vague religious allusions — without any attendant significance.
[5]