The six years of painful silence from indie-rock band Vampire Weekend came to its anticipated end with Father of the Bride (2019) serving as a generous comeback filled with brightness and electricity. With its release in early May of 2019, this project racks up 66 minutes of pure spring bliss as the band’s first double album release. The album includes a heavy vocal collaboration with Danielle Haim, the lead singer from my favorite sister trio, HAIM as well as guitar features done by Steve Lacy. Despite its unique round-up of talent within its contributors, the true power behind this album is its honest reflection of humanity. To say that FOTB is politically-driven is an understatement. This album is one of the most telling artforms that speaks directly to an era of beauty and chaos–the reign of fascism and the abundance of rising, progressive activism that has stemmed itself from it. Father of the Bride is a raw, existential peek into the well-known ivy-league frat party masterminds who have proven to their fans and listeners that they’ve matured since their last album and are ready to do what they do best–make extremely abstract rhetorical metaphors about American politics and relationships.
“Baby I know dreams tend to crumble at extremes/I just thought our dream would last a little bit longer” – This Life, Vampire Weekend
The album opens up with the acoustic-heavy duet “Hold You Now” with Danielle Haim. Already we see the tease of an existential battlecry from lead singer Ezra Koenig, “I can’t carry you forever, but I can hold you now”. We also get an introduction to wedding thematics, with HAIM referencing explicitly the title of the album, as well as the 1991 comedy, Father of the Bride. According to Koenig’s Beats 1 podcast “Time Crisis” co-hosted by American painter and musician Jake Longstreth, the name of the album seemed extremely natural and fitting when paralleled to the songs it encompassed. The title itself upholds strong themes of unity, however, it also cloaks hints of chaos and temporarily within its optimism. We can hear this sort of collision come to life with the band’s choice of instrumentation and production style. Their uses of upbeat guitar-heavy rhythms uphold that classic VW sound we’re all familiar with, along with echoey drums and vocals. However, this album encompasses a mysterious, tense pessimism that undermines its beautifully written, joyful-sounding lyricism through its reuptake of vintage samples and country-influenced ballads that give it a classic, yet foreign feel–possibly alluding to an underlying truth: history repeats itself.
“Of wicked snakes inside the place you thought was dignified/I don’t wanna live like this, but I don’t wanna die” – Harmony Hall, Vampire Weekend
In tracks, “Hold You Now”, “Big Blue”, “Rich Man”, “Married in a Goldrush”, “Sympathy”, the use of folk instrumentals showcase the band taking huge risks, unlike ever seen before in their past discography, in more experimental directions. Partially driven by Koenig’s musical influences like Fleetwood Mac, Grateful Dead, Billy Joel, this element alone helps illustrate that ancient, classic, comfort that comes with unity. Tracks “Harmony Hall”, “Bambina” and “This Life” illustrate a polar opposite. Yes, they’ve got great pop-like choruses that showcase Koenig’s mastery of catchy hooks and chords, but most importantly, they represent the absolute corruption of sanity that comes with a large shift in power. The band themselves have been very transparent about their political beliefs, and have even collaborated with Bernie Sanders in several instances to play shows at caucuses and rallies. Whether unconsciously or not, FOTB speaks directly to a time of uncertainty and defeat faced by liberals. The world seems as if it’s going downhill with every turn, yet we continue to hold on to the tiny things that award us with instant gratification because although “[we] don’t wanna live like this, [we also] don’t wanna die”, as referenced in Harmony Hall.
“Within the halls of power lies a nervous heart that beats/Like a Young Pretender’s/Beneath these velvet gloves I hide/The shameful, crooked hands of a moneylender”- Harmony Hall, Vampire Weekend
Never have the majority of feelings and anxieties held by progressive American people ever been reproduced into an artform of this complexity. Its brilliance lies within its ability to be more than just what it sounds like–rather, it’s overall message seems to personify the motivations behind the new revolution of progressivism. Yes, maybe “things have never been stranger” within the current state of society. However, it is the brief moments of unity and brightness within culture that remind us to keep on carrying on, because eventually, the best things can come out of chaos–one being this album.
Article written by Brianna Luna.