Vampire weekend is back with the band’s first album in six years. The group, made up of West Side New Yorkers, known for their Ivy League degrees and polo cricket sweaters never hid their affluent background. By accepting their place in the world of indie pop rock, refraining from adopting the common indie rock images of harden punk rockers or hipsters, they preserved an authentic yet distasteful image for many fans of indie rock. They portrayed an artistic group that lacked an experience of adversity, as if their success had been hand delivered to them in the form of wealth and undergraduate degrees. This controversial persona inhibited their ability to connect with the widely diverse musical community in its entirety. While front man Ezra Koenig denied a white privileged background, coming from a hardworking Jewish home, the shadow of wealth stuck to them like glue in the media.
In Koenig’s words:
“Because we favor certain ways of dressing and don’t shy away from using obscure words and we went to Columbia University, people have put all the elements together and prejudged us as privileged white kids, even using the word ‘Wasp’, which immediately implies privilege,” he says. “Those things, juxtaposed with our interest in world music, have made it very easy for people to raise the flag of colonialism or imperialism. But the two main writers in the band are Jewish and Persian, which is a pretty broad definition of ‘whiteness’. We’re certainly not all fresh off the Mayflower.”
Six years later, filled with a mix of light hearted and emotionally direct tracks, narrated through wonderfully poetic lyrics, “Father of the Bride” turns the page for Vampire Weekend. It delves into the depths and complexities of relationships, life perspectives, current political unrest and more. The album steps away from the preppy boy band feel, signifying a reinvented image of a matured indie rock band that has grown immensely through the many years of the albums creation.
Following their 2013 album, Father of the Bride, Ezra Koenig had this to say on the large gap between albums.
“On the last record, I had this slight feeling that we got a little bit too big… [Now] sometimes people ask me, ‘Are you nervous that you’ve been gone so long?’ And I might have been nervous three years ago, like, ‘Am I gonna get all this shit together?’ Now I’m at this place where I’m kinda like, if the record wasn’t done and I wasn’t excited to go on tour, I might even wait longer. Not only did I stop stressing about the fact that it had taken so long, I started to be like, ;This makes sense’. Why do people release music more than every five years?”
This album is a true masterpiece, a culmination of love, passionate energy, and the time it takes to create an 18 track double LP.
The album is here for you to preview below.
