Sunflower

A Dork four-star record, 'Sunflower' arrives as the kind of preview that justifies the wait. Vampire Weekend's return after six years between albums finds them in a playful mood, the track built around a simple, repeating melodic hook that sits somewhere between the arch and the genuinely strange. Ezra Koenig sings of a sunflower standing in a garden, a figure of quiet persistence that refuses compulsion, and the song itself has that same stubborn charm. Steve Lacy's contribution, a run of scatting that floats above the verses, adds an almost psychedelic shimmer to what might otherwise be a straightforward indie pop moment. What makes 'Sunflower' work is its refusal to settle. The arrangement keeps flirting with different moods without ever quite committing to any single one. There's a brightness to the production, a spring-time freshness that runs through the whole album, but the song never lets you relax into it entirely. Instead it holds you in a state of pleasant uncertainty, the kind of thing that feels both familiar and altogether new.