Vampire Weekend: The Sequel

This is my first post to also run over at Pop Culture Nerd. I realize posting it here as well means today is my first ever double-dip, but I wanted to get that art show backtracking, shoddy journalism mess off the top of the queue. Though Michael Mararian requested to be my friend on Facebook, so I think one more entry to tie it all up and to reflect on the unusual nature of the blogosphere is in order.

In the meantime, my thoughts on Contra...

The second album usually determines the staying power of an artist. For every debut LP that suggests greatness, is a sophomore release that confirms or denies it. For me, the follow-up must both feel familiar—be faithful to what the band is—as well as explore new ground, because I want to hear the elements that grabbed me in the first place, but as something more substantial than just The Debut Album: Part Two. As such, after the firestorm of admiration around Vampire Weekend’s eponymous LP and the anticipation and hype that surround Contra, the question remained: Were they in it for the long haul, or would they burn out like so many former “next big things”?

The answer? Vampire Weekend is here to stay…probably.

Contra is definitely a good album, even a very good album, though I don’t feel it quite captures the simple genius or fun of their first record. Furthermore, the “indie Graceland” aesthetic—one of the elements that endeared me most to Vampire Weekend—is not as prevalent this time around. Despite this, Contra will likely be one of my favorite albums released this year. There is subtlety, thought, and purpose behind the music. Frontman/guitarist Ezra Koenig is at his best when his voice doesn’t have to work too hard and his melodies are so natural you feel like you’ve been listening to his songs for years—prime examples being “I Think UR a Contra,” a quiet, elegant tale of falling out of love, and “Diplomat’s Son,” a multifaceted yet graceful journey through an aristocratic adolescent romance (as well as one of the songs that best fulfills the formula of “new but faithful”). Vampire Weekend’s instrumental arrangements and rhythmic interweavings are even more advanced and challenging this time around, mostly to their benefit. From song to song and section to section, new instruments and lines drop in and out, sometimes sacrificing continuity, but also creating remarkable moments, such as the cascading faux-horn lines of “Run” and the layered, yelping choruses of “White Sky” (though I would have preferred if the yelps had been swapped for something nicer).

And yet…the Vampire Weekend LP was something I’d really never heard before. It was the rare feel-good indie “rock” record that wasn’t hokey. You could put it on and let it play right through—in a bar, at a party, hanging out in a basement—and people wanted to know what it was, independent of whether they even liked it or not (though most clearly did). Not to say that Contra won’t get it’s fair share of complete runs in a myriad of settings, but it sounds more like everything else this time around, even if slightly. It’s more produced than the debut, which compromises the balance of their sound. There are electronic drums and uncommon percussion and even some vocal effects, but it’s hard to find a place where any of this make their music better. For example, Contra’s “Giving Up the Gun,” while it’s new for Vampire Weekend, doesn’t seem to be charting any new territory as its pulsing, electronic background and vocal harmonies remind me more of a Postal Service song than my favorite musical Columbia literati. Similarly, their effortless, melodic sensibility—ubiquitous on the first album—is on occasion disappointingly replaced by frantic disjointedness, sections of “California English” and “Cousins” being the worst offenders.

Vampire Weekend’s guitarist-keyboardist, Rostam Batmanglij, told Rolling Stone, “Our first record kind of has one vibe, one tone. [Contra] goes in a thousand places at once.” To dismiss the debut as “one vibe, one tone” is to undersell the distinctness between the songs and to belittle the cohesion and flow of the old LP, but this quote sums up both what’s great and not-so-great about Contra: too many twists and alterations crammed into one record, but, as it is seeps into the bloodstream, enough detail and emotion to keep me coming back for years.