Album: Vampire Weekend

Vampire Weekend (XL Recordings)

Vampire Weekend are like an American version of British Sea Power, with a diverse palette of musical styles, and songs featuring references to architecture, naval battles, buses, and punctuation. "Oxford Comma" employs a complaint about over-fussy punctuation to disguise a deeper objection to someone's attitude, while a Manhattan bus route apparently provides the title to "M79", whose prissy chamber-pop arrangement allies cello and harpsichord to a skittering reggae groove.

Click the arrow to listen to a clip of Vampire Weekend's track 'A-Punk'.

The video for 'A-Punk'.

Stylistically, Vampire Weekend's settings range from the one-finger organ part of "Oxford Comma" to the naive, punky charm of "Campus", the hustling two-step drums of "Mansard Roof", and the weird marriage of Burundi-esque drum barrage and silky strings that carries "I Stand Corrected". But the most striking element in the band's sound is the African-influenced guitar of Ezra Koenig, his bright soukous runs sparking the vivacious "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" into highlife, and inventively abetted by mild bursts of mellotron flute on "A-Punk".

Download this: 'Mansard Roof', 'A-Punk', 'Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa', 'M79'

The video for 'A-Punk'.