Old favourites rub shoulders with intriguing new tracks as Vampire Weekend perform a series of intimate gigs promoting their upcoming album
Vampire Weekend Islington Assembly Hall, London Glastonbury, Jun 26-30; touring in Nov
A band is, among other things, a brand: it stands for something. This can evolve through a career, as shown by The Beatles (from boyish charm to blazing originality) and Abba (cheesy warmth to beautiful sorrow).
Or it can be set in stone: The Who run on articulate fury, Oasis on inarticulate frustration.
Vampire Weekend, so far, have been all about playful intelligence. After making friends at Columbia University in New York, these four young men developed a distinctive sound – Ivy League Afro-pop, taking Paul Simon’s Graceland as a template and giving it a twist of 21st-century irony.
Frontman Ezra Koenig brings not just his fellow founder members, Chris the bassist and Chris the drummer, but a lead guitarist, a second drummer and two keyboard players
Now, after a long break and the departure of the multi-talented Rostam Batmanglij, they’re branching out.
Popping in to London to play three small curtain-raisers for their new album, Ezra Koenig brings not just his fellow founder members, Chris the bassist and Chris the drummer, but a lead guitarist, a second drummer and two keyboard players, one of whom doubles as drummer number three.
The sound is bigger and fatter and warmer, as when Talking Heads recruited five funk musicians in 1980. It’s also more varied, veering towards prog rock one minute, punk the next.
The sound is bigger and fatter & warmer. It’s also more varied, veering towards prog rock one minute, punk the next but the effect is mixed and at times it’s too scattergun. Above: Koenig
The effect is mixed. There’s even more energy, but at times it’s too scattergun. A new ballad called Big Blue, short and sweet in the studio, comes with several extra sections bolted on as if it wants to be Bohemian Rhapsody.
There’s a reason why that song hasn’t been widely influential.
The crowd, naturally, go crazy for the old favourites, from Walcott to Oxford Comma. But the new tracks have been intriguing, and when I go home and sit down with an early copy of the album (Father Of The Bride, Columbia, out May 3), they stand up well – so well that this could be one of the albums of the year.
Most of the 18 tracks are direct, concise and heartfelt. As they reach their mid-30s, Vampire Weekend are becoming less of a college band, but like good college kids, they’ve come back after spreading their wings, and everyone is pleased to see them.
THIS WEEK’S CD RELEASES
By Adam Woods
Jenny Lewis On The Line Out now
Rating: 
On her fourth album, Lewis chews on the end of a relationship (Red Bull & Hennessy) and the death of her drug-damaged mother (Little White Dove). Elsewhere, she evokes the stately piano thump of Seventies John Lennon and a distinctively Californian soft-rock
Rose Elinor Dougall A New Illusion Out Fri
Rating:
Taking a number of cues from the symphonic pop of the Sixties, A New Illusion‘s ten songs are often excellent, impeccably arranged and crowned by Dougall’s poised, somewhat Ellis Bextor-ish voice. Lavish, dramatic music