Vampire Weekend
Vampire Weekend
(XL Records)
Now the fog of hype has lifted (I understand that the
members of Vampire Weekend have been now put to pasture in some remote back
forty of Williamsburg, minutes past their prime) and every critic has had their chance to demonstrate how
little or how much they know about African popular music when discussing the
alleged Dark Continental leanings of this 'lil band of Columbia students, we
can see vampire Weekend for what they are: a pleasant pop band. They are as African as Dave Wakeling of The
(English) Beat is Jamaican; they provide a delectable confection made of
whitebread spread over with exotic spices.
In fact, if they sound like anything, it is other bands. "A-Punk," "Cape
Cod Kwassa Kwassa," and "Campus" smack of being third generation AngloSka
reduction, like Special AKA with another AKA added. "One (Blake's Got a New
Face)" and "Campus" have that smarty-pants simplicity that The Strokes possessed
after their fog lifted. I thought "Mansard Roofs" was a shockingly jaunty Wilco
song when it came over the radio. Ditto
for "Oxford Comma" but replace Wilco with Spoon. None of these comparisons are necessarily negative;
in fact Vampire Weekend temporarily improves on its originators in that
three-hour span where you love this album to pieces. After that span of jingle-jangle bliss passes,
the shine dissipates, kinda like it did when you got in General Public way back
when. I just went back and listened to "Tenderness" on YouTube
for the first time in twenty years, and it holds up better than I expected, so
perhaps "A-Punk" will
slightly warm the cockles of my heart in a similar way in another twenty. Only
time will tell; as for VW in the here and now, enjoy the ride as long as it
lasts.
Panther
14 Kt God
(Kill Rock Stars)
The frenetic dance party that is Panther has an equally
traceable lineage to this listener, but in contrast to Vampire Weekend's variety show, Panther
pulls feathers and patches of fur from their ancestors and perform a ritual
dance in order to invoke their spirit. There is
the push-me-pull-you of the Adrian Belew years of King Crimson - many people forget
that the prog rock dinosaurs made a
viable stab for art-damaged pop in the very early 80's, the synthetic pulse of
Liquid Liquid and Talking Heads' sense of sonic tension, Fear of Music
edition. Panther's
multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Charlie Salas-Humara is no Robert Fripp,
hell, he's not even no David Byrne, but he makes a compelling compulsive groove
out of what he is. "Decision, Decision"
is the song that sums it up nicely - you can do it, chanted manically
over a future-tribal percussive spiral, and the tracks like it find Panther
playing to their strengths. The slower,
more atmospheric numbers, like "On the Lam" and "Glamorous War", not so much,
but they are not what you'd call insufferable diversions; in fact the cello
emerging the latter song almost turn this jam around in to something transcendant, but stops
short. The chanty big beat numbers like
"Puerto Rican Jukebox" and "Beautiful Condo" have the real bite on this record;
each possessing that immersive dance-rock throb that I wish would go on for about
five more minutes. Is it a particularly
deep record? No. A timeless gem? Not
exactly. But, given the right
environment, the precise level of intensity built on the floor and those songs
are the best song you could possibly hear in those five minutes, and sometimes,
that is all you need.