Vampire Weekend - Manard Roof
What is it about New York? It seems once you've sold out the Bowery Ballroom and the Mercury Lounge the rest of the world is supposed to be a pushover. The Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and the Rapture were greeted like conquering heroes before their first albums had come out and now Vampire Weekend, a quartet of Columbia university graduates, have appeared with as much ambition as the bands who came out of New York before them.
They're nothing to do with the punk movement that's the city's greatest legacy. 'Mansard Roof' and its B-side, 'Ladies In Cambridge', are baroque pop and, by the sounds of it, Vampire Weekend are rather fantastic at it.
Both of the songs are eccentric, strange mixes of organs that stop playing as suddenly as they start, light percussion that does the same and sweet instrumentals that last as many bars as the singing.
Vampire Weekend's music is more original than the path out of Manhattan they're beating and potentially as good as the best that's come from there before.