Vampire Weekend

At this point in Vampire Weekend’s early career, the four boys from Columbia University are known for a few things. One, the sweater-clad, Ivy League crew looks the part. Two, the band injects Afropop influences into its indie pop tunes, garnering multiple comparisons to Paul Simon’s Graceland before VW’s eponymous full-length has even debuted. And three, in the era of here-today-hated-tomorrow buzz bands, the fledgling foursome is known just for being known.

To be sure, Vampire Weekend’s world music influences shouldn’t be overlooked. The band’s signature song, “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa,” which refers to Congolese soukous music, could also double as a style the band has created--though the band prefers “Upper West Side Soweto.” In the tune, singer/guitarist Ezra Koenig’s playfully heady lyrics rhyme “Louis Vitton” with “reggaeton” and “Colors of Bennetton.” The song isn’t technically kwassa kwassa, but it and other tracks do elicit plenty of comparisons to Afrobeat and even calypso, especially rhythmically.

While the intentional multicultural touchstones are impressive, the band’s real talent lies in how seamlessly the foursome integrates these globe-trotting styles into what is essentially indie rock and New Wave pop. “A-Punk” uses a guitar lick similar to the intro of Bloc Party’s “Helicopter,” but Koenig has taken the angular guitar and tediously smoothed it out with a padded mallet. It’s as if each short and snappy track on the album has been dipped in paraffin to soften any sharp edges. The bass lines bubble underneath bouncy drumbeats, and keys, organ, harpsichord, strings and flute add some more cushion. Koenig usually employs a collegiate croon, but he bleats about on “One (Blake’s Got a New Face)” and apes Sting, complete with faux-British overtones, on “The Kids Don’t Stand a Chance.” Where Yeasayer’s ’07 album, All Hour Cymbals, used world music to create trippy concoctions, Vampire Weekend takes similar influences to produce expertly crafted pop songs with stamina.

I’ve yet to see Vampire Weekend live--though the Wexner Center is bringing the boys to town Feb. 14--but I imagine Koenig singing with a smirk on his face. “Oxford Comma” references the debate over whether to include that last comma in a list of three items: “Who gives a fuck about an Oxford comma? I've seen those English dramas, too. They're cruel.” (The fact that keyboardist Rostam Batmanglij interned at the Oxford English Dictionary one summer adds another layer of meaning.) Then later, in the same song, Koenig name-drops the king of crunk: “Why would you lie about anything at all? First the window, then it's to the wall. Lil' Jon, he always tells the truth.” The band also reveals its inner prepster love of patterned fabric on “M79”: “No excuse to be so callous. Dress yourself in bleeding madras. Charm your way across the Khyber Pass.”

It’s probably no coincidence that “The Kids Don’t Stand a Chance” is the album’s last song--a clever inward jab at the ephemeral quality of bands-of-the-moment like Vampire Weekend. But with tunes catchy enough to snag the sweater these Cape Cod vacationers inspired you to drag out of the closet, the band just may stick around.

mp3: Vampire Weekend - Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa
mp3: Download the Daytrotter session here