“Anger wants a voice, voices wanna sing, singers harmonize ‘til they can’t hear anything,” sings Vampire Weekend frontman Ezra Koenig in their latest release “Harmony Hall.”
“Harmony Hall” starts out with the tune of a melodic guitar as fresh and playful as watermelons in the summer, and describes the waning of the blissful warm months into a blistering winter. As relationships fall apart from anger and a lack of willingness to listen to one another, Koenig sings of painful betrayal, alluding to the misguided actions to wicked snakes in a seemingly dignified place. Eventually, he touches on themes of emptiness as he describes the numbing pain brought by a simultaneous disinterest in life and fear of death.
Despite these darker themes, the fast tempo and imaginative background music tell a sad story in a catchy way. Although I had previously never listened to this band, I was instantly hooked from the first verse, and the chorus has been stuck in my head all week.