[ad_1]
The lowdown: In an interview with GQ last January, Ezra Koenig described Modern vampires of the cityThe latest album from Vampire Weekend, released in 2013, was "Be in the late twenties and look like" Life is crazy. I will die. "When the time has come to write The father of the bridethe group's first album since, Koenig took a long break to understand the sequence of events. In this period, Koenig wrote with Beyoncé and Kanye West, created the Netflix series Neo Yokioand became a father alongside his partner Rashida Jones. The father of the bride find a different Koenig, a content to slow down, an urgency replaced by patience and a mind complemented by wisdom. The characters in his songs follow a similar pattern, often without agitation and uncertainty, but take the time to breathe. Anxious students portrayed in stories about Vampire Weekend and Contra are now parents and divorced, observing the world from a different angle, seeing how ephemeral it can be.
(Listen: Rostam on Leaving Vampire and Going Solo)
Vampire Weekend is also a different band on this album after the departure of the founding member, Rostam Batmanglij, in 2016, to embark on a solo career. While he has two credits on The father of the bride, helping to produce "Harmony Hall" and co-write and co-produce "We Belong Together", the absence of Batmanglij is deeply felt. As the band became smaller and smaller, they decided to work with outside collaborators such as Steve Lacy, DJ Dahl and Danielle Haim, the last of them singing in co-voice or choir on nearly half of # 39; album. Koenig also brought together Ariel Rechtshaid, who co-produced Modern vampires of the city, to maintain a similar luster that has elevated this record. However, The father of the bride is undoubtedly the beginning of a new chapter for Vampire Weekend. Although Koenig's writing is seldom explicitly autobiographical, the split weighs heavily on an album filled with fractured relationships.
Good: Rather than canceling the successes, the band takes a bold step forward in this ambitious double album of 18 songs, often experimental. Excerpts from Hans Zimmer's score from The thin red line and the compositions of the Japanese musician Haruomi Hosono intersperse while Koenig weaves elements of country, reggae, contemporary adult music and basks in his repertoire. Unsurprisingly, it never sounds anything other than Vampire Weekend, whether it's talking to Danielle Haim, like Johnny and June, in "Married in a Gold Rush" or interpolating a chorus from a 2014 Makonnen song and turn it into a daring one. -Update on "this life". Sometimes he comes out of his comfort zone as in "Flower Moon," where a loose psychic hook is superimposed when Steve Lacy starts to sing and helps the song flourish in an overwhelming race. the most hypnotic melodies to date.
Written over a period of five years after the group started to complete a world tour in 2014, The father of the bride finds his characters disturbed. Even while being engrossed in the rush for love, as in the duo "We Belong Together", we always focus on how this could end. The album is as much an end in itself as a new beginning, starting with the opening song "Hold You Now," where Haim and Koenig take both sides of an ultimate attempt to stop a marriage, with Haim shyly chanting: Koenig sums up the complexity of the relationships that develop and fade with a both starry and human approach that recalls Jens Lekman, particularly in "Spring Snow", in the press narrating a thick snow prolonging a goodbye, the narrator deploring that the rays of the sun carry his lover away from his arms in a touching moment. Koenig stages, in the film "Unbearably White", a tender ballad of romantic relationships, capturing all the painful emotions of saying goodbye with phrases like: "That's what you thought you wanted / C & # Is always a surprise. on "Stranger", the only song to directly refer to her relationship with Rashida Jones with her sister's first name, while Koenig draws a little curtain to capture that moment in a relationship where you start to be part of their life, nail the rush to what it's doing.
The bad: The combination of Batmanglij's departure and the desire to explore unknown sounds leads to the group's biggest sonic palette releases so far, such as the "Sunflower" jam-rock and the country duo on "Married in a Gold Rush. Often, it works Well, the way the chorus of "Stranger" recalls Fleetwood Mac of the 70s before the horns come in and that Koenig vampire through couplets like Rod Stewart. From time to time, the band finds its limits, while the ballad on the piano "My Mistake" is closer to a feeling maudlin less poignant than a song like "Hudson". Immediately follow "Sympathy", an elevated track with touches of surf-rock in the riffs centered on isolation and tribalism, with a chorus that loses a little more impact at each rehearsal. Koenig often relies on repetition and play on words, this example not working as well as on "Unbearably White" or "Rich Man".
"Sympathy" is another example of Koenig's slightly opaque lyrics, inspired by his leftist political views (Koenig notably supported and supported Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic primary) and his own identity and socio-economic status. . This comes into play in "Rich Man," an idiotic song taken from an excerpt of a Sierra Leone guitarist's song SE Rogie that plays both as a touching love song and a bitter reminder of the extreme disparity of the riches of the country, written from the point of view of a rich musician. Koenig's writings contain all of this, fully aware of his place in the paradigm and ready to consider that. He repeats this on the beautiful "Jerusalem, New York, Berlin", a lament that does not attempt to fully decompress thousands of years of struggle, but strives to reconcile his Judeo-American identity with his own vision of Israeli society. – Palestinian conflict, with the key phrase "Do not let them resume that genocidal feeling that beats in all hearts" which is the crux of the song. That the song and the album never reach a clear resolution is the goal of all this.
The verdict: As the most influential indie rock band of the last 10 years and certainly one of the few to remain at the head of festivals, the impact of Vampire Weekend on gender can not be overstated. In this same GQ interview, Koenig said: "On the last album, I had this slight feeling that we have become a bit too big." The father of the bride It may not be a direct refutation of this feeling, but its slower pace, its alliances in clbadic pop and AOR, as well as its change of perspective, allow a group to make their way. The father of the bride relates to history, filled with explicit references and implicit nods, though not consumed by it. While one could literally speak of "father-rock" given Koenig's new paternity, the best word could be mature, understanding how love, lust and loss feel different each time, less immediate but deeper. The father of the bride may not have the initial enthusiasm or sparkling energy of the first three albums in the group, now clbadic, but it offers a feat that is both rewarding and daring.
Essential tracks: Harmony Hall, This Life, Unbearably White, Flower Moon and Stranger
[ad_2]
Source link
