Released: 2008
Four chums from Columbia University, Vampire Weekend front man Ezra Koenig wasted no time in outlining their approach to making music as “The basis of our whole band is not playing modern rock.”
The term ‘modern rock’ was of course so wide in interpretation it might as well have been a free/motorway. But in essence the quartet were rejecting the post-punk revival which was very much waxing after being the dominant force in what was the loosely defined construct known as indie rock.
Koenig and co.’s self titled debut was assured and paid tribute to a number of retro-cliques, most obviously the afro-pop first Westernised on Paul Simon’s Graceland. Of course they needed more life than that old shit, and on A Punk they clattered into prominence by straddling The Police and Fela Kuti gone Ivy League, to surprisingly powerful effect. Modern or not, this was was rock well worth hearing.
The Voice Of Unreason 