The blog buzz about New York City's Vampire Weekend is enough to raise the undead.

When you go from zero to fashion layout cover stories in Spin in under two years, the inevitable hipster backlash strikes just as the mainstream is catching on.

Perhaps that's why the quartet played only three South By Southwest showcases. It's already arrived via great appearances on Saturday Night Live and through songs such as "A-Punk."

Staying out of the spotlight when the stakes are being sharpened and garlic garlands woven is wise. Drummer Chris Tomson doesn't care much about that. He knows his quartet didn't arrive readymade in its Abercrombie & Fitch Ivy league look.

"This will be about our third U.S.-wide tour all up and down the East and West coasts and places in between such as Chicago and so on," says Tomson. The band plays one Canadian date, in Vancouver, March 27. "We thought we were doing the right thing in that, building a fan base up slowly.

"Of course, now we're selling out all over and it is completely different."

A farce horror flick directed by singer/guitarist Ezra Koenig starring friends from the band Ra Ra Riot gave the band its name. A trailer exists on YouTube. It sucks. Tomson and Koenig previously played in a nerdcore crew called L'Homme Run. They joined bassist Chris Baio and keyboardist Rostam Batamanglij for Columbia University's Battle of the Bands in the winter of 2006. The group finished third out of four. Bummer.

Then the track "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" hit big on a tastemaker Afro-pop audiblog.

"That was the first time anyone ever wrote about us. I said 'oh s--t!' The version that was reviewed was a very raw early mix I didn't care for as much as the one on the album."

But the blogger said nice things. The plaudits kept coming. So did gigs. After catching the band in the summer of '07, the New York Times' Kelefa Sanneh stated that "even without an album, Vampire Weekend has made one of the year's most impressive debuts."

Is this for real?

"None of this was planned. People were talking and writing about everywhere and it was out of our control."

Where the guys did wield the power was in developing a very catchy sound. The mix of Paul Simon's Graceland, South African star Johnny Clegg & Savuka, chiming U.K. art school pop and some new wave, first appeared on a 2007 EP. The 11-track, self-titled debut came out in January.

Five-star reviews followed just about everywhere.

"The first songs we had were fully written by Ezra or Ross. Then "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" was the first song we really worked on together and shaped in the studio. Now that we don't have day jobs anymore, that's how we do it always."

One thing that has changed is that Tomson, an economics and music grad, no longer has to be the money guy. That's good, because following a serious accident after the Brit Awards where he was hit by a car, it was all he could do to get back in the drummer's stool: "I'm not looking forward to going back to the U.K. at the moment."

He'll have to get over it. Even if the "indie elite" snub this group's sharp pop, a long Weekend is beginning. Immortal? Who knows.

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