Fans have been eagerly anticipating Vampire Weekend's new album, the follow up to 2013's 'Modern Vampires of the City' for five years now and although there have been snippets of information reaching the surface, there has been no official word on the album so far - until now that is. 

This past Saturday (Aug 4), while performing at Chicago’s Lollapalooza Festival last night (August 4), frontman Ezra Koenig shared with the audience an update on the long-awaited record, which currently goes by the working title 'Mitsubishi Macchiato'. “I wanted to tell you that the album is done now,” he said. “I mean, we’re mastering it but it’s done. More on that to come – in the meantime, just enjoy the rest of your summer.”

Earlier this week, as NME points out, it was confirmed the New York band had left XL Recordings and signed a deal with Sony after months of rumors. A Sony financial statement also hinted that new music could be imminent after it listed the band’s fourth album as a “noteworthy project” for quarter three, which ends on September 30, so perhaps the album will be dropping sooner than expected.

Here’s a clip of @arzE announcing that LP4 is done (tonight at Lollapalooza)  pic.twitter.com/dl3GjupjJD

— Team Vampire Weekend (@teamvampyweeks) August 5, 2018

A lot has transpired since the NYC-based indie rockers' last album. In January 2016, Rostam Batmanglij announced that he would be stepping away from the band to pursue his solo project under the name 'Rostam'. But he did confirm that he will be contributing to the upcoming fourth studio album.

Meanwhile, Koenig revealed that the album features a more 'spring-time' vibe and that it is partially inspired by the songwriting of country music's latest superstar, Kacey Musgraves, after he attended one of her shows in September 2016.

Recently, during a two-date performance in Ojai, California, the band teased a new song reportedly called 'Flower Moon.' Koenig says it features the Internet’s, Steve Lacy. Back in May, Koenig proclaimed with half-joking accuracy that their new album was “94.5%” complete.

In related news, Vampire Weekend also debuted five new songs from their album during the Lollapalooza after party. As Stereogum points out, although their main Lollapalooza set featured no new tracks, Ezra Koenig did have a few aces up his sleeve for the after party.

As Stereogum notes, on Sunday (Aug 5), the night after they headlined the big festival, Vampire Weekend played a smaller aftershow at the Chicago club Metro. The set included some rarities including covers of Thin Lizzy’s 'The Boys Are Back In Town' and Koenig's side project Baio’s 'Sister Of Pearl.'

In between the main set and the encore, as the Team Vampire Weekend fan site reports, Koenig played the audience "four and a half new songs on his aux chord, sitting on a speaker and watching the crowd react."

When the band came back for the encore, they played an as-yet-untitled new song in full, as a band, before closing out with two of their classics.

But since no phones were allowed at the show, there are no videos or early recordings of any of the material available, although Vampire Weekend's representatives confirmed to Pitchfork that reports from the show are accurate. Even with no phones allowed, one picture of Ezra Koenig at the show did make its way to Instagram. Check it out below.

 

I'll never forget this night. ezra played some songs from the new album. they sat on stage and we had the first #lp4 listening party. such an intimate, incredible show. "chicago, you are our true fans. you deserve a taste of this album." ❤️ #vampireweekend

A post shared by EMILY NYKAZA (@dankpizzabagels) on Aug 6, 2018 at 12:05am PDT