Vampire Weekend
– Modern Vampires of the City
Modern Vampires of the City is the sound of a band growing up in real time—turning down the sugar rush just enough to let you taste the aftertaste. Gone (mostly) are the prep-school jitters and Ivy League polyrhythms. In their place: dread, mortality, spiritual unrest, and a stubbornly melodic way of dealing with all of it. Ezra Koenig still sounds like the smartest kid in the room, but now he’s wondering if any of it matters. That shift? That’s where the album breathes.
Best of…
The band stretches out here, experimenting without being fussy. Rostam Batmanglij brings a warped, baroque clarity to the production—pianos ring out like funeral bells, drums snap like ghost limbs. Songs unravel more than they gallop. There’s still a bounce in the step, but it limps occasionally. It’s in that tension—between catchy and catastrophic—that the album gets its punch. Vampire Weekend is still interested in culture, faith, and love, but this time they sound like they’ve been burned by all three.
What makes Modern Vampires special isn’t how different it is—it’s how it carries the weight of that difference. There’s no reinvention here, just a graceful shift in pressure. They still write great hooks, still sneak in lines about Oxford commas and Aramaic translations, but the shine is dulled by time. It’s elegant, slightly haunted pop music for people who’ve read too much and slept too little. A record that hums with anxiety but somehow manages to smile through it.
Choice Tracks
Step
A love song buried in references and regret. Koenig sounds both amused and heartbroken, singing over a harpsichord loop like he’s thumbing through old yearbooks. It’s tender, self-aware, and quietly devastating. The melody sticks like a whisper.
Hannah Hunt
This one takes its time. What starts as a soft sigh becomes a storm—when Koenig finally explodes with “if I can’t trust you, then damn it, Hannah,” it hits like an overdue breakdown. Minimalist, until it isn’t. Gorgeous all the way through.
Diane Young
It’s the rowdiest cut on the album and the only one that feels like old-school Vampire Weekend crashing a party. The vocals are shredded, the saxophone is unhinged, and the car-crash metaphor rips through the whole thing like a bottle rocket gone sideways.
Ya Hey
A strange, holy, irreverent anthem. It wrestles with God, fame, faith, and self-worth, all while Auto-Tuned chipmunk voices chirp in the background. It shouldn’t work, but it does—because they believe it, even when they don’t.
Modern Vampires of the City doesn’t demand your attention—it earns it, slowly and surely. It’s a record for 3 a.m. subway rides, long walks home, and conversations you start in your head but never finish out loud. It’s Vampire Weekend’s best work because it feels like the first time they stopped performing and started revealing.