Music Review: Contra by Vampire Weekend

Note: This review will be appearing in the February edition of the Bulldog Bulletin

On January 12, the vaunted prep rock band Vampire Weekend released their second full-length album, Contra, after months of anticipation. Its chart success exceeded nearly everyone’s already sky high expectations as it became just the 12th indie album to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 200, joining the exclusive company of bands like Radiohead and Pearl Jam. Now that Vampire Weekend is firmly entrenched in the national consciousness it is imperative that they stay fresh and innovative going forward to avoid becoming just a fad and judging from Contra it appears that they are trying to do just that.
Vampire Weekend burst onto the scene in 2008 with their exciting self-titled debut and quickly set fire to the indie world. Critics praised the band for their remarkably clean instrumentation and clever high-brow campus lyrics. My impressions from their first album was that the band was undeniably catchy and sounded like the most professional and intelligent garage band that one could imagine. If Vampire Weekend did have a flaw – and it was a rather minor flaw, mind you – it was that when you thought about the album in retrospect many of its songs appeared to have very similar structures and sounded very much the same. I think the band was very aware of this because there is a clear effort on Contra to branch out and experiment a bit to keep their creative juices flowing and keep from going stale. There are many more violin interludes paired with African rhythms on songs like “Run” and “Horchata”, they sample M.I.A. on “Diplomat’s Son”, and even experiment with auto tune (very risky when dealing with a purist indie following) on “California English, Pt. 1”. These experiments all succeed and add another dimension to Vampire’s catalogue. However, other experiments miss the mark – “Giving Up the Gun” leans way too far towards pop and sounds unnatural when placed with the other songs on the album and the finale “I Think Ur a Contra” plods on for too long without building to any memorable climax.
While looking to the future Vampire Weekend has certainly not forgotten what gimmicks brought them fame in the first place. Their clever lyrics are once again shown off in “Horchata” as singer Ezra Koenig begins the album by rhyming “horchata” with “balaclava”. They also prove that they can still rock faster than almost anyone out there with the frenetic lead single “Cousins”. They still keep the tone relatively light and simple and still make playing complex music sound effortless.
Ultimately, Contra falls short of Vampire Weekend’s debut for me in large part because it feels a little less complete than its predecessor. Still, this album was crucial for the band in order to keep their options open and keep the public guessing as to what they’ll come up with next. We will probably look back at Contra as the point where they went national and where they started growing creatively.