twgeek

The first time I heard a Vampire Weekend song two years ago, I was less than impressed and never gave them a chance, particularly after reading some unfavorable comments regarding how they ripped off some great Afro-pop and were just a bunch of rich kids from Columbia. Unfair? Sure, but that first song I heard simply didn’t appeal to me and that was really enough to make up my mind.

Now we have “Contra”. I have purposefully not read anything about this album because I wanted to have an unbiased take on it. I did see that it has reached a level of “universal acclaim” on metacritic.com, but so did Vampire’s eponymous first album, so that isn’t saying much. Taking an impulsive risk with my $9.99, I purchased “Contra” from iTunes. I can truthfully say that it is not money misspent. It is an album packed with great melodies, infectious Afro-pop rhythms, and loads of fun. Let me get one thing out of the way before I get to the good stuff. The lyrics, while at times witty and very funny, are perhaps too full of self-indulgent references to the hipster Manhattan lifestyle.

What makes “Contra” a good album is the musicianship. Starting with “Horchata”, a song about pining for summer days in mid-December, Vampire Weekend reels the listener in with a heady mix of drums, Caribbean/African-influenced percussion, driving bass, marimbas, and tight rhythm guitar. “White Sky” and “Holiday” continue to develop the sound while keeping up the quick pace. At this point I couldn’t care less about the lyrical content; I just want to hear them play.

The pace finally slows down with “Taxi Cab” midway through the album. This is a very well-placed song as it is the perfect mid-set breather. This respite is short-lived, however, as the very next song, “Run” picks up the pace again. This is the first of three songs that highlight “Contra”, along with “Cousins” and “Giving Up the Gun”. The rhythms are at their most complex, the keyboards offer a dissonance not heard elsewhere on the ablum, and there is a sing-along quality to the songs that would make them an absolute blast to experience live.

“Contra” then tails off a bit with the last two tracks, “Diplomat’s Son” and “I Think Ur a Contra”. The former is a strange hybrid between Afro-pop and Reggae and is just a little too muddy for my liking. “I Think Ur a Contra” is just a mess of a song. Slow, full of atmospheric keyboards and lacking the precise, angular rhythms displayed in the rest of the album, it is a disappointing end to an otherwise brilliantly fun album.