Let's Push Things Forward
Download: Vampire Weekend: Boston
It's nice to see a young indie band that gets it, you know? I'm hardly— hardly— the first person, on the internet or in print, raving about Vampire Weekend. But most of their press focuses on what obviously seperates them from all the other indie antelopes. Stuff like this: "...pulling on the world music bend of Paul Simon's Graceland and late Talking Heads, wrapped in literary barbs and ample alliteration."
And all that's true, and inevitably and invariably part of their charm. But there's much more to this band than what most blogs can fit into a blurb before the mp3 ejac or what most mags can fit before the next picture of Britt Daniel. It's the reason why the picture accompanying this post is not the usual obnoxious photo of a horse or some shit. That's Vampire Weekend drummer Christopher Tomson, wailing on his drums much harder than anyone did on Paul Simon's Graceland.
Vampire Weekend— for anyone uninformed, put-off or disillusioned— is a real-ass band. And I don't mean to use italics to show that I'm breaking a sweat over these guys or anything, I'm just stuck somewhere between distressed and annoyed by the fact that exactly, oh, everyone is failing to mention that we've finally got a (nother) fairly MOR indie-rock/pop band with a spine. All that's to say that, yeah, songs about Cape Cod, reggaeton and quads are "smart." But more so is a pop band that knows to build itself a backbone.
They're long on hooks, yes— but so is "The Wheels on the Bus." The reason Vampire Weekend is much more than a good band with a nice blog song is because they've got a rhythm section that is willing to grit their teeth and politely muck shit up beneath all the bongos and minor key synth plinking (much more Walkmen than Paul Simon, anyway— and that's a good thing). Two dudes willing to play the two most thankless instruments in rock for a band already pigeon-holed as Clean Cut Ivy League White Dudes Who Play Afrobeat or Some Shit. Thing is, the joke isn't on them.
Labels: vampirez
posted by Jordan @ 6:00 PM
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