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Maybe it's just because they're already so far removed from their Ivy League days, but acclaimed Anglophile Afrophiles
Vampire Weekend have a bit of writer's block on their inevitably chart-scaling second album,
Contra. Oxford commas and New England commutes apparently don't cut it anymore once you're an indie-rock star, so you have to look for random rhymes for "horchata" instead. Which isn't to suggest they're not still obsessed with privilege. There's a very long song called "Diplomat's Son" that incongruously opens with an
M.I.A. sample, and "California English" says something about "private schools" -- it's just harder to tell if they have anything clever to say about the topic.
V.W. have been singled out from the start as archetypes of the industry's accelerated hype cycle -- famous on the basis of just a couple of MySpace songs, months before the release of
their first album. So it's less shocking that the sophomore slump would hit them than that they managed a fairly enjoyable debut in the first place. And it's not like
Contra is a rehash; the title is a politically confused if presumably ironic reference to
Sandinista!,
the Clash's over-the-top-eclectic coffee-table triple LP from 1981, and the V.W.s do seem to broaden their own rhythmic palate across the Afro-Caribbean diaspora, in their own prim way. "Holiday" sounds like
Haircut 100 doing some jaunty ska oompah; there's something vaguely zoukish about "California English"; "
Cousins," the single and least twee track, opens with a hard
James Brown vamp that Pigbag might've bleated out in the '80s. Evidently they've been listening to Latin music, too. But mostly there's a sort of stiffened punk-funk clank not far from what was coming out of Brooklyn's more bohemian neighborhoods from bands like
the Rapture and
Radio 4 at the previous decade's outset. Which might be useful on hipster dancefloors if Vampire grooves didn't have a mysterious tendency to clumsily disentregrate almost as soon as they're established.
They get praised for putting "space" in their music, probably because of the plinky-plonky xylophones and fancy-pantsy string orchestrations. Which are cute, sometimes. But the melodies aren't there like before, and inevitably
Contra's charming numbers are the ones kept short and speedy; when the band slows down and stretches out -- frequently so Ezra Koenig can pirouette two-syllables words into ten -- they're a snooze. Obviously the hiccuping and yelping, just like all the upper-crust affectations, are part of the concept. But even rich boys need hooks, right?
Vampire rock!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Thats why i am one!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!