Vampire Weekend's New Songs Are Retro Fun

After a performance at SXSW, the sweater-wearing band Vampire Weekend has released two new studio tracks off their upcoming album, Modern Vampires in the City, and they're getting good early buzz — indeed, the retro-inflected tracks will be familiar to fans. 

They played the first, groovier song, "Diane Young," at SXSW this past weekend, where Rolling Stone reported it was well-received by the audience: 

There was a hint of anxious energy in the air as the band began playing; the audience fell quiet during the first chorus, which features tweaky pitch-shifted vocals from Koenig (manipulated in real time by Batmanglij). By the second time the chorus came around, there were whoops of approval rippling through the venue. When the song ended in a last burst of manic energy, the house responded with solid applause.

Fader calls it the "gnarly official single," while Stereogum describes it as "drum-driven and frantic and hyperactive that it defies genre designation, and it has Ezra Koenig trying out a sort of Elvis hiccup."  There's also a "Footloose"-y thing going on: 

Check out this totally 80s summer movie breakdown in @vampireweekend 'Diane Young'. @kennyloggins is smiling. vevo.ly/Zo7wUh

— Alt/Indie on VEVO (@AltIndieOnVEVO) March 18, 2013

(Amanda Dobbins at Vulture likens it to the Doug theme song.)

The second song is a far more mellow affair. Titled "Step," it comes along with a lyric video, which Stereogum rightly points out looks something like Woody Allen's Manhattan. 

The full album is due out in May, and you may remember that Vampire Weekend announced the title in the New York Times classifieds.