771 Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend (2009)

 771 Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend (2009)

Studio Album - Indie Pop



About the Act:

Vampire Weekend are a band from NYC, 2006-now, pretty stable line-up, 4 albums, critical acclaim.

About the Album:

This was their debut album

My History with this Album:

None

Review:

There's a whole slew of these bands that I think of as "alt rock", and I tend to lump them all together. I have heard of Vampire Weekend, but didn't know anything about them (actually they seem to be the sort of band that would get airplay by Jo Wiley on Radio 2, along with Florence and the Machine), and I'm not sure I have heard any of their stuff before. Actually, their sound is quite distinctive.

The sound is kind of indie rock (mostly in the vocal delivery) crossed with poppy/art rock elements, but then married to a whole lump of African sounds. If you are reading all the reviews (I think one or two people are) you will have seen my review of The Indestructible Beat of Soweto - well take a whole load of the sounds and rhythms from that and add indie vocals and and chord sequences, and a few other things, and you maybe get to this. A lot of this is the guitar sounds used, but some is the rhythms too. It's an odd combination, but it works. It's musically fairly diverse, and light and poppy, but with enough interesting things to make it appealing. The songs are curious at times, with some being about being at University, and goodness knows what else. This lightness and accessibility is tempered a bit by some bad language, and occasional adult themes.

However, it's bouncy, it's intelligent, it's musically interesting and witty at times. It could be more polished, at times it's a little clumsy, but at others it is quite charming, there are some nice vocal harmonies.

All in all, yes, I quite liked it. It surprised me a little and delighted me a little.

7.1/10


Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/5fedTyx7AnXeyxLL0giq6x

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpSMVsIRq-N_iGoJL2SuwVKfPoCXDlsBT

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_Weekend



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