Once again, Vampire Weekend debuted two new songs on Sunday night at New York City’s Roseland Ballroom, and they were recorded since the show was live streamed online and directed by Steve Buscemi.
The first one, called ‘Obvious Bicycle’, is a slow and catchy piano melody, with a sparse instrumentation, showcasing Ezra Koenig’s youthful vocals and Rostam Batmanglij’s nice harmonies. It sounds strangely familiar, it actually sounds like an old gospelic spiritual with that choral-effect-harmony-galore of the chorus, ‘Listen ooooh/Don’t wait’,… if I have no clue what the song is about, this is very Paul Simon-esque! Are they actually trying to rewrite Simon’s career backwards?… I mean they obviously started with Graceland!
The other song, ‘Everlasting Arms’, is a little different, synth-driven, not completely upbeat but showing a more wandering and complex construction, and a few very-Vampire-Weekend guitar-synth effects, accompanied by a ‘Leave me to myself’ in repeat throughout the song. If I am not sure what ‘the feet trapped beneath the chandelier’ stands for, I know fans will be dissecting the cryptic lyrics of these songs for a long time.
Their upcoming album ‘Modern Vampires of the City’ is set for a May 14th release via XL Recordings.