Vampire Weekend

I've taken to buying CD's of late. One of my most recent purchases was Vampire Weekend's self titled cd. While I can't stop listening to the CD, its mostly because the album is scientifically engineered to seep into the brains of people like me. The album its self is a bit of a waste of money. While the singles and 1 or 2 other songs are extremely catchy the song writing is lack luster and at points songs seemed strapped together.

My first doubts about the album arose at the second song in the album,"Oxford Comma." In which the Columbia graduates bitch about how people who graduated from Oxford are pretentious assholes. Aside from this unintended irony. Other songs on the album fail to stand up. As I listened more closely I found that even songs that I really enjoyed, like "A-Punk" (pretty much the song of the summer if you asked me), had the same shoddy craftsmanship and air of pretension around them. If you listen to the the song you realize that the mix of A-Punk has the guitar line at the same level as the lead vocals, and if you listen closer you can hear the reason why. The singer can't quite maintain quality in the range in which he is singing. I really like pretentious music with insider references, but despite that this album was hard to relate to for a west coast state college grad like myself.

That said the album does have its high points. Both "A-punk" and "Mansford Roof" are extremely original, and very catchy. The albums love ballads such that they are have great turns of phrase even if in the end the short sighted construction can do them. Both "Bryn" and "Campus" are pretty cool songs, even if "Campus" leaves me feeling lost by the end, Bryn has my favorite line in the album. Despite its flaws the album is a load better then most of the stuff that's being put out right now.

The Guys over at sound opinion's on NPR have a buy, it burn it, trash it scale. Vampire weekend despite the hype, is a burn it.