“Harmony Hall”

Across three albums, Vampire Weekend have created a vast and prim world filled with impressionistic details, from the cold air of New England to drinking horchata on a December day to heartfelt trials of Judaic faith. The boundaries of a Vampire Weekend song continue to be porous on “Harmony Hall,” the first in a pair of tracks released from their upcoming fourth album, Father of the Bride.

“Harmony Hall” is buoyant, filled with the kind of sunlit energy created when throwing open the shutters. Two acoustic guitars do baroque pull-offs like the flora and fauna of spring coming to life, and the chorus is led by a piano groove that could easily be heard late into a particularly rollicking Dave Matthews Band set. The markedly crunchy nod to the Grateful Dead’s “Touch of Grey” feels a bit out of step, but don’t blame the departure of the band’s musical architect Rostam Batmanglij, who co-produces here. (The track also features Danielle Haim, who adds credence to the song’s whole dance like no one’s watching vibe.)

This is all in direct contrast to Ezra Koenig’s lyrics, which remain effortlessly human as they allude to the facades of wealth and power: “Beneath these velvet gloves I hide the shameful crooked ends of a money lender.” He also sings broadly about the cacophony of aggression—political, romantic, it could be anything—in his featherlight voice: “Anger wants a voice/Voices wanna sing/Singers harmonize/Till they can’t hear anything.” But the song’s wide-open space takes precedent over Koenig’s labyrinthian text—“Harmony Hall” is one of the shaggiest songs in the Vampire Weekend catalog. It’s a big, loose, and relatively simple reintroduction, a warm greeting from a dear friend who’s changed.