Drowned in Sound Festivals

Search



mansard roof

Vampire Weekend: Mansard Roof

no votes
?
by Samuel Strang

Describing yourselves as “Upper West Side Soweto” isn’t the best way to amiably introduce yourselves, but, for all their bombardiering flaws, Vampire Weekend’s debut AA release of ‘Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa’/‘A-Punk’ had a certain charm. Rather than distance their preppy stature, the Brooklyn quartet played up to it, overtly MOR but with darting Congolese riffs that would leave Andy Kershaw in fits positioned awkwardly over Ezra Koenig’s earnest croon, calling out like The Walkmen’s Hamilton Leithauser collapsed in a deckchair, tipsy on vermouth, with Graceland pining in the ears.

“I see a mansard roof through the trees,” exclaims an enraptured Koenig as he gazes round as if on a day out from the institution, picking geraniums and wavering with the beauty of the world outside. Whilst utterly unconvincing there is something unwholesomely satisfying about it all, but far from the ‘afro-pop’ hyperbole. Instead, as it starts to spiral with lightweight Disney delirium it is as indebted to the same gurning jive Jack Peñate treads as the guilty pleasures Yeasayer so precariously grabbed at to avail on All Hour Cymbals.

Unnervingly gratifying mundane schlop.

  • Vampire Weekend 5 / 10

how do you know

the riffs are Congolese?


...

BORN IN BRAZZAVILLE.


NO!

This is a great Song!


without doubt

more than a 5!


actually

they were ace when i saw them, and altho i agree with that graceland similarity thing, there is also a fair bit more to them.
Mind you, when it comes to ripping off african music, Paul Simon shits all over vampire weekend!





© DrownedinSound.com | From the Archive - Glastonbury: three DiSsers, some booze and hella mud...