Turns out Rostam Batmanglij's side project yearnings are not satiated by the homebrew pop of Discovery. Under his Boys Like Us moniker, Batmaglij has posted two new tracks, "The Creek Became a River" and "Campus," the latter being a cover a demo of a Vampire Weekend song on their first LP. "The Creek Became a River" is a simple song led by a West Virginian fiddle, the lead in a pack of strings. Batmanglij sings quietly about his time beside and within a slow building body of water, a two versed simple song. His cover of "Campus" is similarly string-laden, similarly vocal-doubled. In fact, it's got almost nothing but strings and voice—some heavily echoed drums enter the picture late in the game. Batmanglij produced the most recent Vampire Album, charging their songs, narrating the band into something thicker. With this solo work, by re-reducing, maybe he's testing a different newness (or maybe he should go back to it). A finely dressed Vampire Weekend with beards like The Band might get them in GQ again. Or maybe Rostam can link with Fleet Foxes to form a modern day Traveling Wilburys. Only time will tell.
Stream: Boys Like Us, "Campus" and "The Creek Became a River"
Update: Vampy Weeks fans in the comments telling us "Campus" is the original version of the song. And "Creek" is also from 2008. Oh well.
