Vampire Weekend // Modern Vampires of the City - Review

Vampire Weekend have made their best album yet. The preview songs were designed to shock – Dianne Young is a noticeably different song, laced with samples and oscillating, pitched-shifted vocal effects. Song writing soars to new heights on this for Ezra Koenig and co.

Experimentation has benefited them. Take Ya Hey for example, it’s chorus is incredibly catchy, mainly due to it’s weird vocal sound on “through the fire, through the flames ya hey, ya HEY”. Typing that doesn't do it justice – you simply have to listen to it below. The band pursued a higher level of recording quality for the listener to enjoy than ever before. They painstakingly listened to Modern Vampires of the City over months to edit out the harsher, colder frequencies – softening the listening experience. This required a spectrum analyser and many commercially available earphones to test the process; iPod headphones were featured to check “the relative warmth levels”. If all that is too long, and you didn't read it, listen to the music. It speaks for itself.

The lyrics may not be as catchy, but the music is incredibly advanced. You wouldn't be surprised if your local music university professor had gone missing when you listen to this: the mixing, the orchestra, the layered vocals all add to the effect Vampire Weekend clearly have desired to have. Piano sticks out like a jealous child to the guitar, seemingly being granted its wish by the parents, as the piano marks, often, the best parts of the album: Young Lion and Worship You. I say the best parts of the album, I've been trying to find any bad parts... maybe where it ends!

If this is the third chapter of a trilogy, then I can’t wait for the next one. More of the same, please?

9/10