Vampire Weekend debuted their latest song on Jimmy Kimmel Live Halloween night, sporting ghoulish skeleton makeup appropriate to both the holiday and the post-Hurricane Sandy mood. There's a touch of the macabre in "Unbelievers," too: "We know the fire awaits unbelievers/All of the sinners the same/Girl, you and I will die unbelievers bound to the tracks of the train," coos frontman Ezra Koenig. The song points to new directions for the New York indie heroes as fans await their third LP, with lyrics that mull the big questions – faith and apostasy, love and fate, life and death – and skittering, jittery music that jettisons the band's usual African borrowings for something more like power pop. But the melodies are still strong, the harmonies still bright – and there's still a view of Cape Cod Bay from Vampire Weekend's picture window. "I know I love you," sings Koenig. "And you love the sea." 

Listen to "Unbelievers":

“All Along the Watchtower”

Jimi Hendrix got hold of Bob Dylan's early John Wesley Harding tapes and in late 1967 recorded a version of "All Along the Watchtower" with the Experience in London. Dissatisfied with that first development, Hendrix brought those tapes with him to New York in early 1968 when he began work on Electric Ladyland. Eddie Kramer, Hendrix's engineer at the time, told Rolling Stone that Hendrix "was still looked upon by his basically white audience as the mammoth black guitar hero. There was a constant fight within him to expand himself." Hendrix's successful take on Dylan's work has long been recognized by the songwriter. "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way," Dylan wrote in the liner notes to his Biograph box set. "Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."