Vampire Weekend: “Harmony Hall” and “2021”
Though their manifestations vary, vampires exist in mythologies across the globe and date back to the Ancient Greeks, with the young adventurer Ambrogio who was cursed to burn at even one drop of Apollo’s light. And in the spirit of such sun-averse figures, Vampire Weekend’s two new singles, “Harmony Hall” and “2021,” from their forthcoming LP, Father of the Bride, dropped on a sunless, wet morning last Thursday.
I was sitting opposite a wall of windows in the Watson Center, as waves of students clambered through the door and made feeble attempts to wring out the dampness of the morning’s downpour. The rain fell in waves, carpet-bombing the small ocean that filled Watson’s courtyard. It was miserable.
And then I hit play.
Call me a romantic, but I swear the rain began to fall in 32nd notes, dotting “Harmony Hall’s” percussive opening guitar riff with a pointillist high-end. Lead singer Ezra Koenig’s voice entered the painting, smooth yet matured. It became clear: the band’s resurrection would not be — as ascribed by myth — half-hearted. Vampire Weekend, now indie veterans, are not simply undead — they’re alive and flourishing. The track is light, airy, and liberated. The instrumentation turns on a dime, often via jump cuts, and a menagerie of synths, filtered guitars, and voices deliver the song’s infectious melodies and meandering lyrics. And while it may come off as clean — maybe too clean — Vampire Weekend’s sound was never all that dirty, and “Harmony Hall” is a tour-de-force of alt-pop.
The single’s B-side, “2021,” is more of a vignette, running about a minute-and-a-half. It’s endearing and weird, marked by the pitch-shifted refrain and music-box synthesizers. It’s unlike anything the band has released before, but its quirkiness is not compensating for any lack of substance. Koenig’s delivery is again effortless, carrying the song’s lyrics — on the periphery of themes of age and change — with levity.
Both “Harmony Hall” and “2021” deal with themes of time, and rightly so. It’s been six years since Modern Vampires of the City (MVotC) was released, and in that time, Rostam left the band, Koenig had a kid with Rashida Jones, and Vampire Weekend entered the indie pantheon. Though “Harmony Hall” borrows a lyric from “Finger Back,” a song on MVotC, it feels less like recycling than rebirthing, allowing a changed world to alter the line’s meaning. Koenig acknowledges that “copper goes green, steel beams go rust,” and, rather than hiding from time and trying to fit into his old Columbia sweater, he looks both backwards and forwards with a sense of peace. The group is no longer the blog darling they were a decade ago, and they will never be again. But that’s okay. Time passes, things crumble, the world changes. But even if the world that Vampire Weekend has re-emerged in sucks, as long as the album is coming out, as long as there is new Vampire Weekend to look forward to, as put in “Harmony Hall,” “I don’t wanna live like this, but I don’t want to die.”
