Very seldom do I find myself in the position of revisiting a band after it fails to impress me. In keeping in the spirit of the new decade, however, I've decided to wipe the slate somewhat clean and give new music from these folks a chance, and the first act on my list of acts to revisit is Vampire Weekend.
Given my total ambivalence toward the band's self-titled (and overrated) debut and utter hatred for keyboardist Rostam Batmanglij's side project, Discovery, I was quite ready to pile a heap of negativity on top of Vampire Weekend's latest release, Contra. But surprisingly, I found that this new effort is the band's strongest yet, and though it doesn't trip any early "album of the year" alarm bells, Contra is still a solid entry in the shallow pool of 2010 tunes thus far.
The strange thing about Contra and its ability to trump any of the New York quartet's past efforts is that it is stylistically similar to Vampire Weekend. Using somewhat eccentric, socioeconomically specific lyrics and a combination of synth-pop, reggae and African pop, Vampire Weekend seems likely to remain firmly within the realm of blogs like Stuff White People Like and the best new music section of Pitchfork. But some slight twists to the old formula make Contra sound new and almost frighteningly exciting - the key word here being "almost."
Why almost? For starters, any committed haters to the overall sound of Vampire Weekend will find almost nothing redeeming in Contra. Starting with "Horchata" and heading all the way through to "I Think Ur A Contra," there are no twists on the formula that are easy to point to as explicit evidence as to why this album is head and shoulders above its predecessor. There are only small touches - like the Paul Simon vibe that oozes out of "White Sky" as frontman Ezra Koenig lightly sings, "The elderly sales clerk / won't eye us with suspicion / The whole, immortal corporation's given its permission," or the M.I.A. sample that is laced so well into "Diplomat's Son" that you may not notice it on first listen - all of which combine to make this album a vast improvement from Vampire Weekend.
Perhaps the easiest way to articulate the evolution from Vampire Weekend to Contra would be to say that even throughout this latest offering's pleasantries and ambiguous novelty, there is still the lingering feeling that the songs on Contra sound the way that Vampire Weekend should have when it debuted back in 2008.
Of course, this is far from the most significant of complaints to have against an album, and Contra - for all intents and purposes - is a great Vampire Weekend album, and certainly should be the recommended starting point for new listeners. The band, however, still can sound off-putting because it may appear to have an unquenchable thirst for all things bizarre and pretentious. But though this barrier of pretentiousness might be enough of a reason to steer the less musically adventurous away from Vampire Weekend, I'm not so sure it would keep me from recommending Contra to just about anyone.
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