Pop Culture Corner

It’s been three years since Contra, and five since the eponymous debut of Vampire Weekend. The band emerged from the Ivy League halls of Columbia University in 2006. Their catchy, afro pop-punk with lyrics concerning pastel-wearing women, Walcott traffic and other Cape humor. Perhaps even “the whitest band in the world,” as claimed by some initial critics. But sure enough, they became a widespread name of the indie music scene, especially on college campuses, with songs like “A-Punk” and “Oxford Comma” earning a lot of airtime and radio station rotation. But after Contra, many people wondered how long their breezy, young-spirited pop could last. Undergrad years are, after all, numbered. But this month, with their third release, Modern Vampires of the City, they break incredible new ground, proving they really do not give a “****” about an Oxford comma.With the opening track, “Obvious Bicycle,” lead singer Ezra Koenig invites us to stay, with a swirling chorus of “Listen, oh / Listen, oh / Don’t wait.” It is immediately evident that the emotion on this album is going to be more direct, that there will be no complex enigma’s like their debut’s “M79” or Contra’s “Diplomat’s Son.” Rarely do bands go in this direction; usually they go farther out there, into their own heads, at the risk of alienating their listeners. But Ezra and the boys are reading to give us something more mature, more down-to-Earth. “Step” is phenomenal, featuring a killer line on the harmonium and tight harmonies. In “Diane Young” (Get it? Say it fast. Three times fast. Get it?), they really rock hard, with the most energy they’ve had since “A-Punk.” The story is equally wild, about a girl who torches Saabs like “a pile of leaves,” “Irish and proud” but with the “luck of a Kennedy.” Four tracks in, and we can tell that even the lyrics have been stepped a notch.The next three tracks are really the high point of the album. First, “Don’t Lie” has Hammond organ over a solid, base-heavy beat. Oh, and there are lines like this: “Old flames, they can’t warm you tonight / So keep it cool, my baby.” The next track, “Hannah Hunt,” was written a while back for a girl who sat by one of the band members in chemistry class in high school. This track takes them into new territory, and is by far the best track on the record. It begins with the echoes of waves and laughing, like a washed-out memory of their Nantucket-themed debut, until we hear the slide guitar and low-key narrative of Ezra, about Hannah and the narrator taking a long cross-country road trip. Suddenly, three-fourths of the way through, the track opens up, with bright piano and a thrilling crescendo, the refrain of “If I can’t trust you, then dammit Hannah / there’s no future, there’s no answer / Though we live on the U.S. dollar / you and me, we’ve got our sense of time.” The songwriting and performing are at its peak here, and it’s the most emotion I’ve ever heard from the band. The last track of the three, “Everlasting Arms,” again features a killer chorus with great thumping bass. These three tracks really define the progress the band has made, and are a great centerpiece for Modern Vampires.“Ya Hey” will undoubtedly be a hit, a five-minute meditation with almost tribal backup singers. The band again approaches new lyrical territory: “Oh you saint, America don’t love you / so I could never love you / in spite of everything.” It was only a few albums ago they were confronting the horror of “standing corrected” at a college campus. Now that they’re out of college, the world reveals itself to have greater challenges. “Ya Hey” is the best example of this change of perspective. “Hudson,” the track that follows, is the darkest on the album, a harrowing yet imaginative description of a post-apocalyptic New York City. Yet the music and lyrics never fall from the bar that has been set by the preceding tracks. If anything, it pushes it higher.Vampire Weekend is back, and they’re here to stay. If anything, this will be the album we remember them by.Key tracks: “Hannah Hunt,” “Everlasting Arms,” “Ya Hey.”