WEEKEND VIDEO
There’s nothing precious about “Cousins.” The guitars scratch rough against the ear when they’re not spinning off into skittering time-trial solos. There are no strings. The bass is an irregular heartbeat that pumps extra blood. Cutesy and/or funny-sounding words are banished. The snare steamrolls non-stop, leaving “Cousins” constantly on the brink of wipe out. And even though singer Ezra Koenig opens with the yelps of a two-toner flailing over rosy coals, “Cousins” does not wipe out. This is still Vampire Weekend; they’re still in control. But it is the sound of an infamously clean-cut band getting heated enough to earn no-qualifier-necessary “No Action” Costello comparisons. “Cousins” is the closest these non-punk punks have come to making a punk song.
There are contentious lines that continue with the (commonly misread) anti-snob stance of “Oxford Comma” and “Walcott”: “If an interest in culture should be lining the walls/ When your birthright is interest you could just accrue it all,” speed-reads Koenig, spitting out his assumed spoon. Yet Costello’s righteous anger is transformed into something warmer and more elusive. The song’s extended familial bent reads like positive evolution. And when Koenig enunciates, “You could turn your back on the bitter world,” the key is “could,” i.e., there’s an easy, angsty way out, and “Cousins” is bucking it away. It’s a rebel yell from four guys who aren’t about to give into petty rebellion anytime soon.