Vampire Weekend
Rating: 4.0/5.0
Label: XL
It was just under two years ago that New York’s Vampire Weekend arrived like a refreshing tropical breeze. The young band managed to keep their heads as the buzz around them got a little out of control, prompting an inevitable backlash. As with another meteoric NYC band a few years back, the Strokes, much of the criticism didn’t even focus on the music, but on their image. VW were privileged (they met at Columbia), smarty pants white preppies who hadn’t paid their dues. No less than Alice Cooper stated, “There’s absolutely no testosterone in this band,” which is both funny because it assumes that masculinity is a necessary quality for good music and because nobody cares what Alice Cooper thinks. Also like the Strokes, Vampire Weekend’s songs are so well-crafted, catchy and immediate that they are impervious to criticism. Perhaps as a jab back at the haters, they have put a pretty blonde in polo shirt on the cover of their second album, Contra, which is Spanish for “against.” Maybe it’s also an oblique reference to the Clash’s Sandinista!, although VW is too modest to be political. Or they could be referring to the much-loved ’80s Nintendo game of the same title.
Their sophomore album couldn’t be better timed, as January is a bleak month, in terms of both climate and music releases. Contra’s breezy, buoyant songs bring Afro-Caribbean rhythms and a sunset-on-the beach mood (without evoking Jimmy Buffett) to this cold, wet month. The first single, “Cousins,” is almost ridiculously fast; a breakneck, breathless pop song that is over before you know it and, like so many of their songs, compels you to play it again and again. Little else on the album is so recklessly exuberant, but that’s OK. Contra is, like its predecessor, a model of conciseness, with 10 songs in about 36 minutes, thought it boasts more texture and is more mature than the debut. It’s more “M79″ than “A-Punk,” with bittersweet lyrics about “better days” and feeling “obsolete.”
It opens with “Horchata,” and the music sets an appropriately Caribbean mood, while the lyrics continue their love of semi-exotic word play “In December drinking horchata/ I look psychotic in my balaclava.” The listener is enveloped in bubbling keys, crisp percussion and sunburst vocals, which somewhat surprisingly recall Animal Collective at their most pop. Vocalist Ezra Koenig sings “Here comes a feeling you thought you’d forgotten” and Vampire Weekend, despite their youth, manage to be mildly nostalgic and evocative without being sappy. As with their debut, both the sunny music and their global scope evoke Graceland, ’80s Peter Gabriel and Talking Heads’ “African” period. While cynics may see another white boy band ripping off non-white music, Vampire Weekend are simply drawing from a wider pool of influences than much of indie rock, whose sources tend to be mostly white and canonical (Stooges, Sonic Youth, Beach Boys, etc.).
There’s nothing groundbreaking about them, but what bands like Phoenix and Yeah Yeah Yeahs have demonstrated is that there can be smart, melodic, well-crafted pop that’s not insipid or frivolous. And even if it’s not particularly edgy or innovative, the simple joys of a great pop song are not to be undervalued just because it’s not always fashionable or avant-garde. It also has enough interesting and creative musical flourishes to give it staying power. “White Sky” jumps and skips, “Holiday” feels exactly like that and “California English” employs Auto-Tune to surprisingly great effect, sounding like futuristic Afro-pop. They also deliver two of their slowest, prettiest and most melancholy songs, “Giving up the Gun” and “I Think UR a Contra,” which wouldn’t be out of place in a Wes Anderson film. Even at 10 songs, it’s not perfect; “Diplomat’s Son” is the longest song and it wears out its welcome and gets uncomfortably close to reggae. Still it’s a great album that retains the best aspects of their debut, but also explores new directions.
The idea of the sophomore slump is a dumb one that needs to die, as for every The Libertines or Adventure, there is a Fun House or Kala. Contra shows Vampire Weekend have more depth and talent than detractors give them credit for and this will be the album-warm, poignant, absurdly catchy-to get you through the dreary winter months.
by Lukas Sherman
