Going for gold

Vampire Weekend switch it up, some, on third album.

THE guys in Vampire Weekend changed how they wrote songs, how they record and what an album of theirs even looks like – the cover for Modern Vampires Of The City is not another artsy old Polaroid, but a 1966 black-andwhite photo of a smoggy New York skyline. None of which will change some minds. “There’s certainly going to be people who listen to this album and say, ‘Wow, more of the same from Vampire Weekend. I knew I hated these ... college boys,”’ said frontman Ezra Koenig.

Those ranks are thinning. Blowing off Vampire Weekend as smirking, preppy Ivy Leaguers too quaint and precious for their own good is a position becoming tougher to defend. Tables are turning. Now it’s their eye-rolling critics who risk not being taken seriously.

Modern Vampires Of The City, the New York quartet’s third album and the follow-up to the 2010 smash Contra, is its best to date. Band members call the album, out now, the completion of a trilogy, and it will likely crumble whatever mass-appeal barriers are left.

“I wanted us to embrace our identity in a way. I wasn’t afraid of sounding like we had before in some ways, because I think there was an opportunity to go deeper than we ever had before,” said guitarist and keyboardist Rostam Batmanglij. “That’s what I think we’re doing on a lot of levels on this record.”

Modern Vampires is still a distinctively Vampire Weekend album: harpsichords, gospel pianos, Jamaican influences are liberally applied. But they’re also being more accessible. First single Diane Young rocks along behind a punk riff and pounding percussions.

Members of the group had largely avoided writing songs together before starting the new album. This time, though, three songs – Don’t Lie, Everlasting Arms, and Hudson – all got their start during a cottage retreat to Martha’s Vineyard after the group took a cue