Early 2010’s indie rock mainstays Vampire Weekend have been enjoying a renaissance due to the release of their new album Father of the Bride on May 3. As part of their promotion of the new album, the band along with the west coast band HAIM, appeared on Jimmy Fallon to perform “This Life” and “Jerusalem, New York, Berlin”(only available as a web exclusive) on Tuesday night.
Father of the Bride is stacked with plenty of new features on the album, with former member Rostam, Danielle Haim and the acclaimed guitarist for the neo-soul outfit The Internet Steve Lacy. This is the band’s first studio album in over 6 years, with the latest being their 2013 release Modern Vampires of the City.
Like the band’s preceding albums, Father of the Bride received widespread critical acclaim, scoring an 82 out of 100 on Metacritic. Many lauded its complexity, yet appreciated the band’s signature understanding of earnest pop music which the band has constantly reshaped throughout their entire career.
“With a song like “Stranger,” even the name of it compared to “Oxford Comma” or “Mansard Roof”—it’s inexpensive. No expensive words,” frontman Ezra Koenig stated in an interview with Pitchfork regarding the track off Father of the Bride. “I still always want there to be text and subtext and sub-subtext. But I can give you a pretty straightforward definition of what that song means: It’s about when you’re in a house and you hear other people having a good time and you don’t feel left out because you have a sense of belonging. That’s something you don’t always feel when you’re younger.”
As one of the most prominent indie bands from the New York City indie scene, home to many legendary groups msuch as the Strokes, LCD Soundystem and Interpol, Vampire Weekend stood out by embracing a niche image as New York prep kids. Their sonic palette was diverse, influenced by Batmangliaj and Koenig’s cultural upbringings, but also due to their exposure to various dub and world music styles while they attended Columbia University.
“People always ask, ‘Do you miss New York?’ I say,’“Yes, I miss it a lot. I kind of wish I was there, but the important people in my life are in L.A,” Koenig explained further in the interview. “But then I started to feel like I don’t necessarily miss New York City. I miss Upstate New York and weird memories of going to Vermont once when I was a kid and driving through Connecticut. Increasingly, I started to be like, ‘I miss the Northeast Corridor.’ If anything, this album is informed by nostalgia for the East Coast.”
With this move to LA, comes a different sound and also different themes that have inspired the new project. Koenig explained in the Pitchfork interview that the new focus on environmentalism was first done out of nostalgia for the 90s environmentalist movement, but that it grew to a larger concern.
“Environmentalism is not the type of thing that’s supposed to feel old, so I was like, ‘Geez, what does that mean?’ I just like that aesthetic of ’90s environmentalism, but it’s also interesting to pull back into 2019 when, luckily, some very smart people are very interested in thinking about these things,” Korenig elaborated. It’s about how the past is never fully gone and never fully irrelevant. You know, time is a flat circle, all that shit.”
Photo Credit: Raymond Flotat
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