The four guys in Vampire Weekend are fresh-faced Columbia grads aiming to perfect the smartest brand of party rock since David Johansen moonlighted as Buster Poindexter. They're also shooting for the weirdest. Vampire Weekend is unlike any other band making music these days — offering up a killer blend of funked-up Afrobeat, slick '80s pop, and polite punk. And their lyrics — mixing references both low- (Peter Gabriel, Louis Vuitton) and highbrow (Oxford commas, mansard roofs) — are by turns goofy and whip-smart. But Vampire Weekend's musical influences are symptomatic of just how much stuff people can absorb these days. Songs like "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" mix Radio Disney bubblegum with the diluted world music of Paul Simon's Graceland. "A-punk," on the other hand, could be a toss-off from the Clash's Sandinista!
