(XL/Remote Control)

The band who sounded like an episode of Gossip Girl made flesh and blood take on album number two

Vampire Weekend’s debut was so good that following it up was always going to be a tough call; the second time around, the band have wisely chosen not to mess with the basic formula too much. Superficially, Contra is a lot like their first – it has the same bright melodies, the same Paul Simon and Talking Heads touches and the same blink-and-it-might-just-be-an-Afropop-record vibe. A few tracks in, though, and the differences start to become apparent – Contra comes kitted out with a whole array of synths, and its songs flirt with electro, reggae, dancehall and any number of other genres that have been trendy on the blogs over the last eighteen months. Track four, California English, is the first and most jarring departure from the first album – with its Auto-Tuned vocals and manic, galloping drum beats, it sounds like an outtake from a Diplo or M.I.A. mix-tape. That one’s a bit of a dud, as is Diplomat’s Son – the title suggests all kinds of coked-up Gossip Girl-style antics, but the actual lyrics, “he was a diplomat’s son, he was eighty-one”, are a bit dull – but it’s mostly solid stuff. Contra doesn’t contain anything near as fun or memorable as Oxford Comma or Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa, but it’s agreeable and uncomplicated and I can still see myself listening to songs like Cousins or Giving Up The Gun a lot over the rest of the summer. 

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ALASDAIR DUNCAN

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