After six years of silence Vampire Weekend are finally back with new music: the two singles, Harmony Hall and 2021, are the first to be taken from the band’s forthcoming album Father of the Bride.

It’s clear this is an important return because Vampire Weekend were the band that defined the peak of the indie-rock era, soundtracking our first relationships and school parties. On their refreshing debut Koenig sings about Cape Code summers, preppy guys and blue-blooded babes, using satire and irony. Songs like Oxford Comma mock the affluent american twentysomethings. The result is brave music that works because of its juxtapositions: of white music to black music, of preppy to the outsider.

Since the beginning Vampire Weekend had the perfect formula for success: catchy melodies, exotic flavors, that baroque and orchestral sound mixed with the afrobeat inspiration from Paul Simon’s Graceland. In addition, their charming combination was natural, sly and easy in a way that you couldn’t resist it.

With Contra, Vampire Weekend perfected that intrigue and sported their recognizable sign, through a marvelous exercise in style. The result was a record full of multicultural genres: the African source was still audible but mixed with Puerto Rican reggaeton, Jamaican dancehall, and Californian ska-punk.

I remember we all fell in love with it.

Modern Vampires of the City came out in 2013, finding the band take a leap forward into a more reflective mood: Vampire Weekend got rid of the carefree collegiate reference, going after something more fancy and mature.

Since their third album, a lot happened: Rostam left the group, Chris Baio released a solo album, and Ezra wrote and produced the animated Netflix series Neo Yokio. Finally in 2017, Ezra revealed that the new Vampire Weekend album was “80% done” but only this year we could have a taste of it.
So, listening to the first two tracks from Father of the Bride, we begin to ask ourselves what we expect from Vampire Weekend’s new album.

Harmony Hall, which includes contributions from Dave Longstreth (Dirty Projectors), Greg Leisz and Rostam, alludes to the early sound of the band, summoning a summertime mood with a sweet piano and cheery guitars.
Instead, 2021 is a bit shorter and shows the band’s most introspective nature (it sounds like a callback to Modern Vampires of the City). In a recent conversation with NPR, Ezra said 2021 was based on a sample of synths drawn from a song by the Japanese musician Haruomi Hosono: this music was composed to be played in MUJI stores in Japan in the ’80s.

Considering the latest two singles we could say that Vampire Weekend have worked on a sound that mixes their early frivolous melodies with the emotional directness of MVOTC.
By the way, it’s honestly too early to tell.

Here is everything we know about Father of the Bride:

 

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To the fans:⁣ I know that 5-6 years is considered a long time between records. Personally, I think it’s a dignified pace befitting a band that’s already placed three albums in stores but everyone has their own sense of time. (I swear the time between 3 & 4 felt shorter to me than 2 & 3. I may be in the minority on this one.) ⁣ ⁣ This album didn’t really take any longer to write/record than MVOTC. We just took more time on the front end to chill. I’ll admit I may have stretched out the mixing/mastering process (aka THE END) a little bit cuz spending half the day with my family & half the day at Ariel’s is my ideal life-rhythm & it’s painful to say goodbye to that rhythm.⁣ ⁣ Many of you have been hungry for information and we’ve given you very little. I don’t like talking abt a project while in the middle of making it. I usually regret everything I say cuz it turns out to be wrong (so disregard anything I may have said in the past 5 years.) I thought abt making a recording diary to tide over the people leaving intense comments but…to me, the album IS the recording diary…man.⁣ ⁣ It’s called “FOTB” (well those are the initials – that’s a VW tradition) and it’s 18 songs. Picked the name a few years ago. At some point early on, the album drifted from the Mitsubishi Macchiato aesthetic. It was a helpful guiding principle tho. Working titles are important too.⁣ ⁣ It’s a lot of songs but they all belong there. (If you disagree, you can always say it was 6 songs too long & make a lil 12-song playlist version of it.) At first, I wanted to make two 23-song albums on some human chromosome shit but then 23&me started doing Spotify playlists and I don’t know…felt we’d been scooped.⁣ ⁣ Is it a double album? The vinyl will be double so…yes? It’s about 59 minutes long. We can talk more abt that later – if u care. To me, it’s just FOTB.⁣ ⁣ Anyway, we’re gonna start releasing music next week. After all that waiting, you should have the general schedule:⁣ ⁣ -There will be three 2-song drops every month until the record is out. 1. hh/2021 2. s/bb 3. tl/uw. (plans can change that’s the plan)⁣ ⁣ Thank you for ur patience,⁣ Ezra

Un post condiviso da Ezra Koenig (@arze) in data: Gen 17, 2019 at 1:05 PST

Of course we are already fantasizing about a soulful track from Vampire Weekend feat. Steve Lacy!

But let’s put our dreams and predictions aside. What we really expect is a genuine return to indie-rock: we really hope that Vampire Weekend will show once again the way to go and write the future of American indie scene.