Are Vampire Weekend the most loathed band in recent history? Since the success of their 2008 eponymous debut, the band have been derided for the archness of their lyrics, their apparent ‘comfortable’ upbringings, and for being entirely responsible for all the world’s current ills.
However, Contra, their sophomore effort, is a glorious, rapturous response to their critics, positing the band as indeed contra, or against, the critics’ relentless sneering and indignation as they return with an even slicker, more danceable, downright more quotable record. Frontman Ezra Koenig’s sympathetic delivery and the album’s baroque pop leanings are reminiscent of Prefab Sprout at their finest while the keyboard flutterings are far more prominent than on the debut, moving the band even further away from a white-boy indie sound to a Euro-Afrobeat hybrid.
Clocking in at under forty minutes, Contra is not so much the sound of a band in transition or indeed mutating rapidly. Instead it is the sound of a band with full confidence in their musical and lyrical abilities, sweeping from Clash-influenced ska (while sampling M.I.A.) on “Diplomat’s Son” to the brooding and almost-bruised sounding closer “I Think Ur A Contra”.
This is a resolutely ‘Vampire Weekend have created a perfectly now’ record, capturing our archival culture, eco-politics and even the politics of escapism from a recession fuelled world.
February 16, 2010 at 2:46 pm, Death + Taxes Magazine said:
[...] you’re sitting back, enjoying a beer and listening to the new Vampire Weekend album thinking “hmmm…all the reviews reference this afrobeat stuff but all I know is Paul [...]