Since the start of the millennium, it seems like nearly all of the most well written and memorable albums have either been hard to appreciate completely until the third listen — Radiohead and Bon Iver’s discographies — or are catchy from the start but lack depth — Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe.” With “Modern Vampires of the City,” Vampire Weekend has created an unlikely album that is both instantly loveable and thoughtfully intricate.
The first word that comes to mind with “Modern Vampires of the City” is “alluring.” Much of this is due to the vocal melodies, which range from the excited, bouncy first verse of “Worship You” to the sweet, stretching lines of “Step.” The instrumental arrangements are equally gorgeous, mixing busy drum-work, ethereal synthesizers and electric guitar seamlessly. While literally every moment of the album illustrates this, the best instance is the incredible climax of baroque harpsichord going into the choruses of “Don’t Lie.”
One of the tunes that stands out most, “Hudson,” is instrumentally sparse and sounds like a gloomy death march. For those less familiar with their work, a legitimately creepy song like this from Vampire Weekend would be as out-of-style as Metallica releasing a Christmas sing-along collection. Amazingly, not only does “Hudson” fit into the album, it happens to be one of “Modern Vampires”’ best moments, convincingly promoting the album’s main theme of mortality with somber lyrics and a ticking clock used as percussion.
Though it contains only enjoyable, polished songs, the disappointment with this album is that despite its potential for perfection, it falls just short. With so many flawless tracks like “Step,” “Dianne Young,” “Finger Back” and “Hudson,” the one or two weak points in the album are more apparent, like the fact that chorus of “Obvious Bicycle” wanders a little too close to territory explored in “Contra.” But this amounts to looking for superficial mistakes in what is very arguably the best alternative album released so far this year: Most of “Modern Vampires of the City“ is literally more gratifying than sex, while the remaining parts come pretty damn close. (9/10)
