It’s been almost six years since Vampire Weekend released Modern Vampires of the City. Fans have been patient, with all of the leaked working titles, with the announcement of founding member Rostam Batmanglij leaving the band, with last Summer’s festival sets—their first in years. Still, 2018 came and went, and Vampire Weekend didn’t drop any new music. But with their names on the Hangout and Firefly Music Festival lineups, we, once again, summoned our hope.
Now, Vampire Weekend frontman Ezra Koenig has shared all of the details we’ve been waiting for. Not only will the beloved indie rock outfit be dropping their new album in 2019, but it will be a double album, 18 songs long. “It’s a lot of songs but they all belong there. (If you disagree, you can always say it was 6 songs too long & make a lil 12-song playlist version of it.),” Koenig wrote with his doughy sarcasm.
Check out the word from Ezra Koenig’s Instagram, below.
For those of you who didn’t get through the lengthy caption, here’s the brief: Vampire Weekend will start releasing songs next week, with two song drops every month until the album is out. Their new album bears the initials FOTB, which has already spurred a storm of speculation. What does FOTB stand for? Fear of the Beast? Father of the Bride? First Owl Then Bear? Considering Vampire Weekend’s earlier, working title was “Mitsubishi Macchiato”, there’s simply no telling what FOTB could stand for.
Though Vampire Weekend hasn’t announced the official release date for FOTB, we think that date should be revealed soon, perhaps after the first round of singles. For those of you who just can’t wait to see when the Vampire Weekend tour is announced, we suggest grabbing your tickets for either the Firefly or Hangout Music Festival, where the band will definitely be showing off their new material.