It perplexed me that shortly after the release of Vampire Weekend’s self-titled debut, the rough impression suggested that more people hated the band than liked them; not just because I happened to be among the latter, but because it seemed so ridiculous to lash out against them with the predominant reasoning being that they were too educated, too cultured and referenced places like Dharamsala. Were these the same folks who hilariously derided Obama for being elitist? I mean, why talk about the Dalai Lama’s residence when most are just proud to boast about surviving the streets of their home burg?
Contra will likely continue the fashion of infuriating and delighting those who’ve already drawn their lines in the sand. The band has tightened up a bit, which is beneficial and distracting for an outfit of international mash-up artists, and their study of Afro-beat, calypso, reggae and collage add referential tangents to the recent work of Animal Collective (those elitist bastards!), but essentially you’re gonna get what you’ve invested prior to purchase. Maybe their pursuit of ideals beyond their closed-door Columbia University exclusivity might let a few stragglers in, but this will never be a band of words so long as they remain so vague and precariously precious on paper but so winsomely thrilling in practice.
That aforementioned notice of the AC pumping through Contra’s veins applies mostly to the polyrhythms that sparkle beneath die-cut guitar patterns and a web of rubbery additives both synthetic and orchestral (the presence of heavenly harmonies on several tracks merely alludes to Merriweather Post Pavilion). This rings particularly true on “California English,” which lurches with nervous meter though the wobbly Auto-Tune of Ezra Koenig’s vocals that makes it sound like tape loop experiments (or that the “English” is in fact of the broken variety). They find the other side of the pasture with the hooky “Give Up the Gun.” But even with its more uniform, powerful beat, it’s no more a betrayal than leadoff “Horchata,” which is stickier and perhaps even more irresistible than anything off their debut (yes, maybe even “A-Punk”).
Elsewhere, Vampire Weekend eschews tricky message in favor of elegantly flavored expression. The fractured beat and junkyard-styled instrumentation of “Cousins” transforms that first single into the kind of avant-punk that homebodies might find more comfortable (though it jerks and bobs with restless discomfort). “Diplomat’s Son” has a relaxed calypso rhythm that gradually builds in agitated tension; it crumbles away at the midway point to relieve that anxiety only to be recharged later in an instant and collapse once again not long after that. During that track’s breezier moments, blipping keys and synths pulling off symphonic-style flourishes erode any semblance of their core unit playing it safe. And on the immeasurably ecstatic side, wild, discombobulated falsettos send “White Sky” into the ionosphere and the aptly-named “Holiday” belongs on the soundtrack to any film montage of Americans having a ball in the Bahamas.
One of the prevailing themes of Contra seems to be some kind of (astonishingly) graceful defense against the naysayers tempted to accuse them of being overly posh and preppy. On “Taxi Cab,” Koenig tweaks both the class divides (“You said, ‘Baby, we don’t speak of that,’ like a real aristocrat”) and the trend of “low” celebration (“You’re not a victim, but neither am I, nostalgic for garbage, desperate for time”). And “California English” nudges at inward self-importance both on image and a fascination with the very elitism of activity: “Leafing through a stack of A-Zs to surf the UK/Waiting with the wind against your face/And gel in your hair…Sweet carob rice cake/She don’t care how the sweets taste/Fake Philly cheesesteak/But she uses real toothpaste.” Alluding to a more blue-collar ethic will win them no converts—“Every dollar counts and every morning hurts, we mostly work to live until we live to work” on “Run”—but they remain just inscrutable enough for us to insert our own perceptive measurements (or just not give f-ck all about any of it).
But VW’s strength remains with their gift of fusing various world sounds and finding irrepressible rhythms to churn and broil restlessly until the final pass. Further evidence of this is offered through comparative contradiction by mild closer “I Think UR a Contra,” which sleepwalks through its hazy flutters, bogging down even more when the strings listlessly bleed—as sincerity-in-a-coma, it stands in direct contrast to the sweep of “Run,” which enjoys ponderous moments, but leavens them with chattering beats and positively stirs with its ornate fanfare. Luckily, “Contra” is positioned last as a modest comedown, allowing the rest of the disc to rumble, jive and soar with incongruous precision and the sheer joie de vivre of springy melody and soaring harmonies. Even though Contra is somewhat stiffer in mentality than its free-for-all cousin from ’08, both serve as nearly unblemished examples of sharply colorful clutter and irresistibly catchy music that must seem alien to those proud to defile the folks sitting on the upper crust.
