Logo
DiS Needs You: Save our site »
  • Logo_home2
  • Records
  • In Depth
  • In Photos
  • Blog
  • Podcast
  • Search
  • Community
  • Records
  • In Depth
  • Blog
  • Community

THIS SITE HAS BEEN ARCHIVED AND CLOSED.

Please join the conversation over on our new forums »

If you really want to read this, try using The Internet Archive.

Vampire Weekend

Mansard Roof

Label: Abeano Music Release Date: 05/11/2007

28974
ssssamuel by zzzzzz zzzzzz November 6th, 2007

Describing yourselves as “Upper West Side Soweto” isn’t the best way to amiably introduce yourselves, but, for all their bombardiering flaws, Vampire Weekend’s debut AA release of ‘Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa’/‘A-Punk’ had a certain charm. Rather than distance their preppy stature, the Brooklyn quartet played up to it, overtly MOR but with darting Congolese riffs that would leave Andy Kershaw in fits positioned awkwardly over Ezra Koenig’s earnest croon, calling out like The Walkmen’s Hamilton Leithauser collapsed in a deckchair, tipsy on vermouth, with Graceland pining in the ears.

“I see a mansard roof through the trees,” exclaims an enraptured Koenig as he gazes round as if on a day out from the institution, picking geraniums and wavering with the beauty of the world outside. Whilst utterly unconvincing there is something unwholesomely satisfying about it all, but far from the ‘afro-pop’ hyperbole. Instead, as it starts to spiral with lightweight Disney delirium it is as indebted to the same gurning jive Jack Peñate treads as the guilty pleasures Yeasayer so precariously grabbed at to avail on All Hour Cymbals.

Unnervingly gratifying mundane schlop.

  • 5
    zzzzzz zzzzzz's Score
Log-in to rate this record out of 10
Share on
   
Love DiS? Become a Patron of the site here »


LATEST


  • Drowned in Sound's Albums of the Year 2025


  • Why Music Journalism Matters in 2024


  • Drowned in Sound is back!


  • Drowned in Sound's 21 Favourite Albums of the Year: 2020


  • Drowned in Sound to return as a weekly newsletter


  • Lykke Li's Sadness Is A Blessing



Left-arrow

Sons and Daughters

Gilt Complex

Mobback
28865
28974

Vampire Weekend

Mansard Roof

Mobforward
Right-arrow


LATEST

    news


    Drowned in Sound's Albums of the Year 2025

  • 106149
  • news


    Why Music Journalism Matters in 2024

  • 106145

    news


    Drowned in Sound is back!

  • 106143
  • news


    Drowned in Sound's 21 Favourite Albums of the Y...

  • 106141

    news


    Drowned in Sound to return as a weekly newsletter

  • 106139
  • Playlist


    Lykke Li's Sadness Is A Blessing

  • 106138

    Festival Preview


    Glastonbury 2019 preview playlist + ten alterna...

  • 106137
  • Interview


    A Different Kind Of Weird: dEUS on The Ideal Crash

  • 106136
MORE


    Interview


    Person of the Year 2014: Meredith Graves - Inte...

  • 98657
  • Mixtape


    Mixtape #18: No Age

  • 41134

    Label focus


    Label Focus #1: Drowned in Sound Recordings

  • 21534
  • feature


    DiS meets Gang Gang Dance

  • 26689

    feature


    Cursive - Six Recorded Highlights

  • 45147
  • feature


    Another band dies at the discotheque: DiS remem...

  • 20732

    Festival Review


    An alternative music festival or a clap-a-long-...

  • 92375
  • feature


    DiS meets Deftones

  • 17401
MORE

Drowned in Sound
  • DROWNED IN SOUND
  • HOME
  • SITE MAP
  • NEWS
  • IN DEPTH
  • IN PHOTOS
  • RECORDS
  • RECOMMENDED RECORDS
  • ALBUMS OF THE YEAR
  • FESTIVAL COVERAGE
  • COMMUNITY
  • MUSIC FORUM
  • SOCIAL BOARD
  • REPORT ERRORS
  • CONTACT US
  • JOIN OUR MAILING LIST
  • FOLLOW DiS
  • GOOGLE+
  • FACEBOOK
  • TWITTER
  • SHUFFLER
  • TUMBLR
  • YOUTUBE
  • RSS FEED
  • RSS EMAIL SUBSCRIBE
  • MISC
  • TERM OF USE
  • PRIVACY
  • ADVERTISING
  • OUR WIKIPEDIA
© 2000-2025 DROWNED IN SOUND