After six long years, Vampire Weekend are back. The band has today released their new album, Father of the Bride, and you can stream the full thing below via Apple Music and Spotify.
Father of the Bride follows 2013’s Modern Vampires of the City, and marks Vampy Week’s first record since the departure of founding member Rostam Batmanglij. Batmanglij returned for the sessions as a producer, though, alongside BloodPop, DJ Dahi, Chromeo’s Dave Macklovitch, and Steve Lacy. Frontman Ezra Koening is credited as an executive producer, as is frequent collaborator Ariel Rechtshaid.
(Read: 10 Most Anticipated Indie Rock Albums of 2019)
The 18-track double LP also features a number of guest contributors, such as HAIM’s Danielle Haim, who appears on a number of tracks: opener “Hold You Now”, “We Belong Together”, “Married in a Gold Rush”, and the single “This Life”. In addition to his production work, Lacy appears on the previously revealed “Sunflower” as well as “Flower Moon”. A number of other songs were previewed ahead of the release, including “Unbearably White”, “Harmony Hall”, “2021”, and “Big Blue”.
Speaking of the downtime between albums to GQ, Koening said,
“On the last record, I had this slight feeling that we got a little bit too big… [Now] sometimes people ask me, ‘Are you nervous that you’ve been gone so long?’ And I might have been nervous three years ago, like, ‘Am I gonna get all this shit together?’ Now I’m at this place where I’m kinda like, if the record wasn’t done and I wasn’t excited to go on tour, I might even wait longer. Not only did I stop stressing about the fact that it had taken so long, I started to be like, ;This makes sense’. Why do people release music more than every five years?”
Take a listen below. You can also catch Vampire Weekend playing the new material on their upcoming expansive North American tour. Find tickets here.
Father of the Bride Artwork:
Father of the Bride Tracklist:
01. Hold You Now (feat. Danielle Haim)
02. Harmony Hall
03. Bambina
04. This Life
05. Big Blue
06. How Long?
07. Unbearably White
08. Rich man
09. Married in a Gold Rush” (feat. Danielle Haim)
10. My Mistake
11. Sympathy
12. Sunflower (feat. Steve Lacy)
13. Flower Moon (feat. Steve Lacy)
14. 2021
15. We Belong Together (feat. Danielle Haim)
16. Stranger
17. Spring Snow
18. Jerusalem, New York, Berlin