Rating: 2 stars (out of 4) Vampire Weekend knows all about high expectations. The Brooklyn, N.Y., quartet’s
2008 debut album was an Internet sensation months before it was officially released. Nonetheless, it went on to sell nearly 500,000 copies – no small accomplishment at a time when sales of recorded music are plummeting.
How to follow up one of the biggest indie hits of the decade? On Tuesday, Vampire Weekend returns with
“Contra” (XL Recordings), which is also streaming on the band’s MySpace site.
Though drawing on references such as ‘70s New Wave and various strains of African and Caribbean music that have been around for decades if not centuries, Vampire Weekend is in many ways a quintessential 21st Century band.
The quartet were Internet stars in 2007 on the basis of a few digital music files that sent music bloggers into a tizzy. After the first wave of caffeinated hyperbole wore off, there was an equally impassioned response from dissenters. Only in the file-sharing era could a band suffer a backlash
before its first album even came out.
The underlying theme in much criticism of the band is its pedigree. The quartet consists of preppy, Ivy League-educated musicians in their early twenties, and their songs don’t pretend otherwise. Singer Ezra Koening revels in clever, polysyllabic wordplay. And a video for the band’s first album showed the foursome lounging on a yacht.
In addition, the band’s fondness for Afro-Caribbean textures and rhythms drove some naysayers crazy. For these critics, it’s simply not cool (or politically correct) to appropriate the music of Third World countries while wearing a polo shirt. Such silly criticisms belie the fact that just about all North American popular music draws on some variation of African, Cuban or Caribbean rhythm.
For those who focus merely on the music rather than the sociology, the question remains: What’s all the fuss about? The songs on “Vampire Weekend” were breezy, upbeat, occasionally danceable and utterly innocuous. “Contra” is slightly heavier and more adventurous, experimenting with an even broader array of world-music textures and beats. It’s a more ambitious album, but also slightly less immediate, with fewer hooks per song (or sometimes none at all).
The arrangements have become busier, denser, the beats even more global. The rhythms fan out across frantic ska (“Holiday”), Latin-flavored reggaeton (“Run”) and dancehall reggae (“Diplomat’s Son”). The instrumental textures embrace classical piano and harpsichord (“Taxi Cab”), Kalimba thumb piano (“Horchata”) and West African guitar (“White Sky”). The vocals are often treated like another instrument, morphing into an ambient hum beneath “I Think UR a Contra,” or distorting like an Auto-Tuned hip-hop MC on “California English.”
The musical detail is impressive, if not quite adding up to as many catchy songs as on the debut. A greater concern is that after two albums, it’s pretty apparent that Vampire Weekend doesn’t really have a whole lot to say. If anything, the band is taking itself more seriously on “Contra,” which isn’t a step in the right direction. The lyrics, clever and occasionally droll on the first album, now try to probe deeper feelings.
Give Koening points for undoubtedly becoming the first rock lyricist to rhyme “horchata,” “balaclava” and “Aranciata.” But even when his heart’s been broken -- "You wanted good schools and friends with pools/Well, I just wanted you" – he doesn’t exactly sound devastated. His reaction is more like a melancholy shrug of the shoulders.
And a shrug of the shoulders is what this album deserves. It’s possible to respect the music, to be pleasantly entertained by it, but left wondering what the heck this band’s most ardent champions -- and equally agitated detractors --- are getting so worked up about.
greg@gregkot.com
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