I was twenty minutes into a drive when “Hannah Hunt” came on, and I almost crashed my car. Not because I was sobbing (though that came later), but because my body didn’t know how to process the sound of something breaking inside me in real-time. You know that feeling? When a song doesn’t just “slap” or “hit,” but instead, it sits you down, looks you in the eyes, and says, You didn’t think you could still feel this deeply, did you?
That’s Modern Vampires of the City. That’s the whole damn album.
Before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s be clear: this isn’t just a good album. This isn’t even just Vampire Weekend’s best album (which it is, and if you argue, I’ll fight you in a Whole Foods parking lot). This is one of the best albums ever made. Full stop. Top to bottom. Front to back. No skips. Not one.
When it came out in 2013, people were still thinking of Vampire Weekend as the Upper West Side Soweto Cosplay Club, rich Columbia boys making Paul Simon-core music for kids who wore boat shoes but had never been on a boat. But then Modern Vampires dropped, and suddenly, they weren’t just clever. They weren’t just precocious Ivy League dweebs with a penchant for harpsichords. They were prophets.
I know how that sounds. But listen.
This album sounds like time. Like aging. Like the moment you realize that no, you are not, in fact, the main character. You are not special. You are going to die, and your bones will turn to dust, and no one will remember your name except maybe a cousin who saw you that one Thanksgiving.
Hear me out.
There is grace in the knowing. There is a sense of humor. There is a winking despair, as if to say: Hey, this all ends, but isn’t it funny how hard we’re all trying?
Ezra Koenig’s lyrics have always been witty, but here, they become something closer to scripture. Death, God, love, time, America. It’s all here, all spinning around, all unanswerable but demanding attention.
In “Step,” he sings,
Wisdom’s a gift, but you’d trade it for youth
Age is an honor, it’s still not the truth.
Excuse me??? Who gave him the right???
In “Ya Hey,” he speaks directly to God—not in that religious way, but in that late-night, staring-at-the-ceiling, hoping-someone’s-listening kind of way. It’s joyful. It’s agonized. It’s a neon cathedral, glowing in the dark.
And then, of course, there’s “Hannah Hunt.” The song that will emotionally curb-stomp you without warning. It starts as a whisper, soft and aching, and then, about three minutes in, Ezra loses his fucking mind.
“IF I CAN’T TRUST YOU THEN DAMN IT HANNAH! THERE’S NO FUTURE! THERE’S NO ANSWER!!!”
And just like that, your soul leaves your body.
Musically, it’s perfect. No hyperbole. It’s lush but restrained. It’s baroque but raw. It’s existential dread you can dance to. There are organs. There are haunted pianos. There are ghostly choirs. Rostam Batmanglij (bless him forever) made it sound alive. Like it breathes.
And it doesn’t just sound good. Modern Vampires of the City is the kind of album that sticks to you. You hear it once, and suddenly, it’s tied to moments in your life you haven’t even lived yet. You’ll be forty, driving home late at night, and “Hudson” will come on, and you’ll remember something you forgot to miss.
It’s been over a decade now, and nothing has unseated it. Not even close.
So yeah. It’s good. It’s really fucking good.