Vampire Weekend's Ezra Koenig feels ''more American than ever before''.

The 'Diane Young' singer surprised even himself with how he has embraced his home country, even though the band's new album, 'Modern Vampires of the City', has songs critical of US foreign policy.

He said: ''A funny thing has happened, which is that I feel more American than ever before. As complicated as it is, there's no place that I really feel at home.''

Speaking about US operations overseas, he added: ''Anybody with a brain is critical of American foreign policy. You can be the most patriotic American and still be completely disturbed by it.''

Ezra's bandmate Rostam Batmanglij - whose parents are Iranian - has different feelings about American history and feels there is still a modern form of prejudice against people with middle eastern heritage.

He told NME magazine: ''As a person who's heritage is in the Middle East. It's difficult to pay attention to the news and not cringe. You watch certain John Hughes movies and there's all this racism against Asian people, and no-one would bat an eyelid. There's huge periods of American history where racism against black people was OK.

''The truth is that's happening to Middle Eastern people all the time. There's no-one protecting the identity of Middle Eastern people, and there's a racism that plays itself out, not just in news coverage, but fictionally or culturally.''